iiiii! The Making of Modern Germany 'Ferdin an d S c hevi 1 1 ill i !1 1 1 1 •lit; I THE MAKING OF MODERN GERMANY X-W/^LjS*^ Stulfltr: STATUE OF FREDERICK a IN BERLIN THE MAKING OF MODERN GERMANY Six Public Lectures Delivered in Chicago in 70/5 By FERDINAND SCHEVILL Professor of Modern European History in The University of Chicago CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1916 Copyright A. C. McCIurg & Co. 1916 Published February, 1916 W. f. HALL PKINTINC COMPANY, CHICAGO pp PREFACE np HE following six lectures were delivered in the year *• 1915 at the invitation of the University Lecture Association (in cooperation with the University of Chi- cago). In preparing them for publication I considered myself free to reshape them, to add, subtract, and fuse, with a view to presenting as close and connected a story of the evolution of modern Germany as was possible under the circumstances. Various features have been added — Footnotes, Maps, a Select Bibliography, and a body of eight Appendices — of which I entertain the hope that they will be found, each in its own way, to supplement and enhance the text. The lecture form has for the historian many disad- vantages, but also undeniably one advantage; as such I look upon the necessity of marching onward by a sin- gle designated highway in order that the audience may not lose the sense of movement and direction. Among the often painful disadvantages, I am particularly im- pressed with the obligation of avoiding, in the interest of a smooth and swift journey, many matters which lie off the highway and yet arouse a most legitimate curi- osity. It was to meet this drawback that I have added the features spoken of above, more particularly the Appendices, each of which presents some subject having an immediate value and interest for the reader. The [v] vi Preface Bibliography is of course only a first aid to beginners, and offers no more than a list of books which may prove useful to such as desire to penetrate farther into the origin and development of the German state and society. As these lectures were arranged for in the spring of 1914, they were not planned with an eye to the present terrible conflict. Inevitably however, the great Euro- pean war, overwhelming and monopolizing the thought of the whole generation of living men, pointed my inquiry toward the economic and other causes which produced the struggle. Although this is in no sense a war book and the military happenings since August, 1914, lie wholly outside my scope, I hope none the less that I have added to our understanding of the issues involved in the struggle and illuminated somewhat its significance for the Germany of today and of the future. It is Goethe, I think, who says that no subject, not even the natural history of the beetle nor the summer cycle of a seed of grass, can be profitably examined with- out a fundamental basis of sympathy. I need there- fore offer no apology for treating with sympathy the Making of Modern Germany. But a sympathetic approach, I venture to hope, has no kinship with blind bias and does not preclude that patient search and philo- sophic objectivity which should be the historian's staff and scrip upon his pilgrimages. Moved by the desire to understand in order to explain, I have put to myself the question which, according to Ranke, should light the way for every worker in the field of history: Wie ist es eigentlich gewesen? Accordingly, how Germany Preface vii came to be and what she is at the present moment in state and in society — such, putting it summarily, is the line of approach represented by these lectures. If we assume — and most of us imbued with modern science are inclined to assume — that life in society is not all blind chance, but that it proceeds in part at least under the control of man's operative intel- ligence, it becomes our right and duty to learn as much as possible not only concerning our own American soci- ety but also of every other commonwealth which cour- ageously, though with mixed success, struggles with the problems of our time. Such a human commonwealth is Germany. Better knowledge of it is devoutly to be wished, for the study will supply our people with matter for an enlightened self-criticism, as well as with creative suggestions that may lead to an improved control of the many confused and complicated aspects of modern community life. F. S. The University of Chicago, igi6. CONTENTS LECTURE PAGE I THE END OF THE ELDER GERMANY, AND THE RISE OF BRANDENBURG AFTER THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR 3 II FREDERICK THE GREAT AND THE ADVENT OF PRUSSIA AS A EUROPEAN POWER .... 35 III NAPOLEON BONAPARTE: PRUSSIA'S OVERTHROW AND RECONSTRUCTION 67 IV PROGRESS AND REACTION: FROM THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA TO THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 . 99 V BISMARCK AND THE UNIFICATION OF GERMANY 127 VI GERMANY SINCE HER UNIFICATION .... 159 APPENDIX A THE HOHENZOLLERN RULERS FROM THE GREAT ELECTOR TO THE PRESENT DAY .... 209 B THE LIST OF STATES COMPOSING THE GERMAN EMPIRE 211 C CONCERNING THE TITLE AND THE POWERS OF THE GERMAN EMPEROR 212 D THE SUFFRAGE PROVISIONS FOR THE REICHSTAG AND FOR THE SECOND CHAMBER OF THE PRUSSIAN PARLIAMENT (LANDTAG) . . . 216 E THE RACE FOR COLONIES. 219 F THE POLISH QUESTION 222 G THE EMS DISPATCH 235 H THE ALSACE-LORRAINE QUESTION .... 243 BIBLIOGRAPHY 251 INDEX 255 [ix] ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE STATUE OF FREDERICK n IN BERLIN .... Frontispiece FREDERICK 11, CALLED THE GREAT 56 QUEEN LOUISE 76 STEIN 94 SCHARNHORST 94 KANT 94 GOETHE 94 BISMARCK 168 MAPS THE TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF PRUSSIA IN THE SEVEN- TEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES .... 22 THE GERMAN EMPIRE, 1914 250 The End of the Elder Germany and the Rise of Brandenburg after the Thirty Years' War The Making of Modern Germany JFim Lecture THE END OF THE ELDER GERMANY AND THE RISE OF BRANDENBURG AFTER THE THIRTY YEARS* WAR THE series of six lectures which I am beginning is to treat of the making of modern Germany. I shall direct my attention in the main to the study of the complicated political movement which culminated, after many dramatic episodes and as the result of the labors of many generations, in the unification of Germany in 1871 ; in connection with that political story I shall try also to set forth the leading facts in the social evolu- tion of the German people itself. As the presentation of this material will require five lectures, I shall be able to devote my sixth and concluding lecture to a sketch of united Germany's recent development. The terrible war now raging in Europe, in virtue of its being an unfinished event and as yet quite beyond the reach of a calm and unbiased exposition, I feel justi- fied in avoiding. However, if I must decline to speak of what lies beyond my ken, I shall at least not hesi- tate to proceed to the very edge and threshold of the [3] 4 The Making of Modern Germany war in order to explain how it happened that Germany was sucked into its seething and unfathomable vortex. The purpose of my first lecture is to lay as broad a foundation as possible for the understanding of the many complicated problems that confronted Germany in her long struggle for unification. To this end I shall not scruple to penetrate into a relatively distant past, and to show how in the Middle Ages there existed an elder Germany which after a period of fame and splendor ignominiously crumbled into dust. This elder Germany came into being in the ninth century at the same time that England and France first took shape as political entities, and, like England and France, this elder Germany was, in point of view of government and society, what we familiarly call a feudal state. By that term is meant that Germany was indeed a mon- archy, but that the monarch enjoyed only limited pow- ers and that the essential controlling factors in the political life of the nation were the two privileged classes, the clergy and the nobility. Privileged — why? For the simple reason that in a very primitive society, living by agriculture and agriculture alone, they boasted a practically exclusive ownership of the land. But though the clergy and nobility owned the soil they did not fertilize it with the sweat of their brows. They left that menial service to the peasants who consti- tuted the mass of the population, performed the total productive labor of society, and eked out as best they could a wretched existence from the pittance their landlords left them after generously providing for themselves. The Rise of Brandenburg 5 Of towns deserving the name there were none in that distant, barbarous time, since the scanty needs of a young and uncouth society could be amply satis- fied in the small market centers that sprang up by ford and crossway. A rapid sketch of this feudal Germany of the Middle Ages presents the following fundamental elements : It was passionately Christian under a church which was an integral part of the great Roman Cath- olic church; it was agricultural with the land owned by the great landlords, the prelates and barons, and worked by the peasants whose economic and legal sta- tus was very miserable; and it was monarchical with the political power shared between the sovereign and the great lords of church and state, but never exer- cised autocratically by the sovereign, even when he was a man of exceptional power, because his depend- ence on the privileged orders was, under existing con- ditions, fixed and irremediable. Now if you should try to imagine yourselves back in early medieval times looking about the European world and taking stock of the young and formative German, French, and English nations, you would be impressed with the fact that Germany was better organized, probably more populous, and certainly more powerful and possessed of greater international authority than her two western rivals; and on the basis of such obser- vations you would be justified in prophesying that a great and brilliant future was in store for her. That prophecy, however, would be found to run counter to the facts, for history shows that this brilliant medieval Germany, after a relatively brief career, 6 The Making of Modern Germany showed unmistakable signs of decay and that even before the end of the Middle Ages it had been fairly outstripped by England and France which, consoli- dated in government and strengthened by new terri- tory, presently struck that proud stride which carried them not only without break but with cumulative tri- umph through century after century down to our own day. I am therefore obliged to put the question, What was it that produced this overthrow of medieval Ger- many after so prosperous and vigorous a beginning? The complete answer would prove a long story, but in the main it will be found to be contained in a num- ber of ferments and ideas peculiar to the period. Many or all of these may seem to us of a later age no better than absurd hallucinations, but our altered viewpoint should not keep us from recognizing that they had a perfectly intelligible origin in the conditions of the time, and that they enjoyed an extraordinary and uni- versal authority. One of the most potent of the concepts dominating the medieval period was the coming again of the Roman Empire, the famous world-empire of Caesar and Augustus. It was fervently believed that this revived Roman Empire would establish harmony among the newly formed European nations, terminate the fierce local strife maintained everywhere by the feudal barons, bring back an even-handed justice ready to let its sword fall on rich and poor alike, and cul- minate by realizing that noble prospect, the dream dreamt by lovers of their kind in all periods of the The Rise of Brandenburg 7 world's history, universal peace. What wonder then, that in the formative centuries to which I am inviting your attention, the sovereign of the German state, who by his sudden rise towered above the shoulders of the other sovereigns of Europe, should have had the idea suggested to him that he was the prayerfully awaited Roman emperor! The clergy, who were the only educated and intel- lectual men of the time, were particularly emphatic in preaching the imperial doctrine, and had much to do with bringing the German monarch to the point of action. Above all, the pope, head of the Christian church, beckoned from across the Alps and summoned him to take the seat divinely prepared for him in the Eternal City. Accordingly, he gathered his followers and entered Italy. At Rome he was festively received by Christ's vicar, who put the crown upon the visitor's brow and solemnly, without the faintest sense of absurdity, proclaimed him — in simple truth no more than a semi-barbarous chieftain from the frozen north — the Roman emperor come again ! To such heights had theory carried the German sov- ereign's adventurous footsteps when he found himself face to face not with theory but with reality. To grasp the situation in its fullness we must keep before our mind that the medieval theory of the emperor, grant- ing to that functionary universal authority in civil matters, had as its counterpart the theory of the pope, which conceded to the head of the Christian church sole and unquestioned authority in matters spiritual. Finally, to harmonize all the elements of their teach- 8 The Making of Modern Germany ing, the theorists affirmed that pope and emperor were in no sense rivals, but that each supplemented the other since each enjoyed authority in an absolutely distinct realm. But however clean cut the doctrine was, the application of it was a different matter and for a rea- son so simple that we can only wonder that the delusion was not dispersed as soon as it was born. Just as in the actual living of our lives an exact dividing line can not be drawn between body and soul, so in our community existence it cannot be drawn between church and state; and no matter how sincere we be in our desire to keep these domains separate, in practice mankind thus far has steadily found them variously and inextricably entangled. The result was that pope and emperor fell to furious quarreling and, in spite of all the philosophic assertions about inde- pendence and equality, each rudely attempted to estab- lish his authority over the other in the profound private conviction that if there was to be world-mastery it should be exercised by one and not by two individuals. Never did a theory, redolent of Arcadian promise but based on a false and arbitrary view of the nature of man and of society, produce a more terrible crop of disasters ! The details do not concern us here. Suf- fice it that pope and emperor were at daggers drawn for many generations and ended one bloody war only to begin another. And naturally in the course of this bitter struggle the pope summoned to his help what- ever agencies he found at hand. Among these, first to consider and of steadiest service, was the great spir- itual agency of excommunication — the power he had The Rise of Brandenburg 9 as representative of Christ on earth to lay his curse on those whom he regarded as the enemies of Holy Church. But help of a more material sort was not lacking either. He called upon the prelates and great lords of Italy to aid him with their arms and resources; he called upon the rising Italian cities such as Flor- ence, Milan, and Venice, which were just coming to the front through the development of commerce and industry; and finally he did not scruple to send his appeal across the Alps and call upon the princes of Germany, always anxious to reduce the power of their sovereign in order that their own power might grow by his decline. Before this combined pressure of the pope and his supporters applied for generations, the emperor went to the ground, and to the end of escaping complete destruction he was at last obliged to make peace on such terms as he could get. In their final form these terms involved his bending a humble knee before the pope, whom he recognized as his superior, and his withdrawal fro'm Italy and her affairs; but of more particular concern to us, as students of Germany, is that he was obliged to surrender most of his sovereign rights in his German homeland to the princes and bishops, that is, to the lords lay and spiritual, and to be content henceforth with the merely nominal head- ship of the nation. This movement of decline in the power of the sov- ereign was complete by the thirteenth century, and therewith the first or medieval unity of Germany was, if not destroyed, at least very substantially undermined. 10 The Making of Modern Germany But Destiny is ever ready to grant new chances to those of her children whose courage does not fail them, and the emperor, weakened and reduced as he was, had tossed to him at least one splendid opportunity to win back his lost authority. It came in the period of the Protestant Reformation. You all are familiar with certain far-famed and rather obvious aspects of the Reformation. You know that early in the sixteenth century there arose an Augustinian friar, by the name of Martin Luther, who joined issue with the pope over the question of In- dulgences, and that the Indulgence issue, broadening and deepening until it drew ever wider circles, ended in the effort to terminate once and for all the pope's con- trol of the Christian church in Germany. Knowing so much, you are aware that the Reformation was in the eyes of contemporaries as well as in our own eyes a passionate movement in the field of religion and church government. But the Reformation was a great deal more than a religious crisis, for it could never have been so gen- eral and powerful if it had not run parallel with a great national outburst. The national sentiment had become awakened, really for the first time in German history, by what were profoundly felt to be oppress- ive acts of the pope against the German state and people. It was, above all, his policy of extortionate taxation that aroused the whole nation on palpable, material grounds against the Roman pontiff as a for- eign tyrant whose yoke was galling and destructive. So deep was the patriotic indignation that any emperor, The Rise of Brandenburg 11 possessed of sufficient understanding to put himself at the head of the movement and speak the magic word for which the people waited, would have found a force behind him capable of sweeping him irresistibly into the position of command abandoned in the thirteenth century. On the ruin of his power the princes and prelates had built their individual states, but they would now have been ruined in their turn and the central power would have been reconstituted if the emperor, making the most of his unique chance, had boldly stepped before his nation as its heaven-sent leader. It was the immeasurable misfortune of Germany that a nationally minded emperor was not at hand at that moment when the whole political stage was set for his arrival, and that in consequence the splendid opportunity was permitted to go by unused. The emperor, contemporary with Luther, was Charles v, an intelligent man in his way, who cut a very con- siderable figure in the world in a long reign of thirty- six years (1520-56). But from the German national viewpoint Charles v had one overwhelming drawback that more than cancelled his many personal merits: he was brought up far from German influences in the Netherlands and Spain, countries that he was destined to inherit and to which he belonged quite as much as to Germany, and his Dutch and Spanish teachers had inculcated in him a blind devotion to the Roman church. When, on mounting the throne, he came to Germany for the first time in his life, Martin Luther had just precipitated the enormous Reformation crisis. Per- 12 The Making of Modern Germany haps we should in justice remember that Charles was only twenty years old when he faced the situation, but, whether it was the fault of his inexperience or of his cold and narrow nature, he proved himself utterly incapable of understanding what stirred the nation to the very depth of its soul. Not only did he manifest an immediate aversion for Luther, but feeling himself to be a Spaniard rather than a German, he eagerly resolved to do what lay in his power to crush the national movement, since in his eyes it was but the cloak of a rebellion directed against the divinely sanctioned power of the church. By virtue of his position he was enabled to gather together a minority of the people and princes on his conservative plat- form, while the majority, the rebellious and progress- ive mass of the nation, fell in behind the banner of Protestantism. Thus the country was torn from end to end and an unparalleled opportunity to produce unity served only as the occasion of a new and more fatal division than had existed before. The two parties, Catholics and Protestants, faced each other with bitter religious animosity and, begin- ning with sporadic conflicts patched up with ambigu- ous treaties, they at last engaged in one of the most terrible and prolonged struggles of history. I am referring to the great civil conflict known as the Thirty Years' War. The Thirty Years' War was waged in the seventeenth century from the year 1618 to the year 1648, and when it was over it left behind a devastated country and an utterly exhausted people. Considered as a duel of rival religions the most striking thing The Rise of Brandenburg 13 about the inhuman combat was that it brought a vic- tory to neither side. It was substantially a draw, with the result that the peace of Westphalia, which con- cluded the long agony, declared that those who were Protestants might continue to remain Protestants and that those who were Catholics might continue to remain Catholics. By virtue of this compromise there was established in law and in fact that mixed Germany, part Catholic and part Protestant, that meets and astonishes the religious inquirer to this day. From a political viewpoint however, the Thirty Years' War was so little in the nature of a compro- mise and so wholly decisive that it put a final end to the German state. It accomplished that result by virtue of the articles of the treaty that deprived the emperor of his last remaining sovereign powers and distributed them among the princes, bishops, and city republics; that is, among the several hundred small states making up the dominion of Germany. It is true that the imperial office was not abolished and that even an imperial legislature (Reichstag) and an imperial court (Reichsgericht) were left standing. But since all the effective powers of government had been legally transferred to the component states, the federal institutions became more and more negligible. It happens that they were not abolished and the coun- try cleared of their useless and unhandsome presence till 1806, one hundred and fifty years later; but that fact need not hinder us from declaring that as a national state Germany ceased to figure in the politics of Europe from the year 1648. 14 The Making of Modern Germany Under these circumstances it may seem surprising that not infrequently in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries we encounter an emperor who was a person of power and dignity; but let us make no mistake, he owed such distinction as he enjoyed not to any power the federal constitution gave him — how could he when the constitution had become a mockery? — but solely to the power springing from his hereditary possessions, to what the Germans call his Hausmacht. For it should be noted that the emperor was also head of the German province of Austria which happened to be larger than any other German state and gave him an important revenue. Such power as he wielded after 1648 was therefore an exact expression of the area, population, resources, and organization of Austria. But as these were considerable and on the increase the Austrian ruler was enabled to speak a weighty word in the coun- cils of Europe, due, however, as anyone with eyes can see, to his hereditary lands and in no sense to any authority conceded to him by the moribund German constitution. Thus going to the root of things and refusing to be deluded by appearances, we may confidently assert that the year 1648 saw the end of the elder Germany. That end indeed had long been threatening. In the thirteenth century the emperor had been obliged to give way before the encroaching princes, and when the Reformation gave him a popular following with which to renew the struggle, he had, through a fatal mischance, scorned to use it. The Protestant-Catholic cleavage had followed, ending in a civil war of unpar- The Rise of Brandenburg 15 alleled dimensions and ferocity, and when it was at last over political Germany presented the appearance of having been broken as under the blow of a giant's hammer into scores of little fragments. You will permit me to pause at the peace of West- phalia in order to illustrate with some corroborative detail the misery of Germany at the time she lost her national unity and found the blackness of death closing over her. It is important that we comprehend her general situation, for it is the year 1648 that I accept as the effective starting-point of the new Germany, whose story is the real matter of these lectures. The political annihilation already recounted was only part of the wretched story of the Thirty Years' War. The economic exhaustion was no less complete and furnishes the explanation of the grinding want that henceforth for years to come pinched every class and household. The long war had driven its burning chariot over every square mile of German territory, and there were extensive areas where the contending battle lines had swayed to and fro a score of times. The result was that the cities were depopulated, their commerce and industry dead. In the countryside whole counties were deserted by their peasants, who no longer were willing to till the fields since before the harvests could be gathered, the ripening grain would be leveled with the ground by the trample of armed hosts. In some particularly stricken regions the jungle had resumed its sway and an impenetrable underbrush covered the scattered and pathetic vestiges of man's labor. 16 The Making of Modern Germany We need not believe all the tales told by contem- porary chroniclers — tales, for instance, of famished men turned cannibals, or of wolves that laid siege to villages deserted except for a few toothless men and women — but the simple indisputable facts are these : The population was reduced by more than half; all the material savings of the nation, its working capital, was wiped out; the cities, sapped of the trade which was their life-blood, had become empty shells; and the villages, when they had not been burned with fire, had been plundered of their movables and left as bare as a bone. Considering all these items we become aware that, economically, we are confronted with a nation which is once again at the beginning of things and which, having lost the patient and painful accumu- lations of centuries of labor, must make an absolutely new start. Nor are we yet at the end of our tale. Educationally and intellectually the situation was no whit less dis- couraging. In the course of thirty years of warfare that slowly ground the hearts out of men, the schools and universities had fallen into neglect, and even the churches, both Protestant and Catholic, had to a large extent been obliged to shut their doors for lack of pastors. The generation alive in the year 1648 had been brought up without learning or religion; that is, without those institutions by virtue of which man has chiefly succeeded in differentiating himself from the beasts of the field. The society therefore of the West- phalian treaty, grown up amidst scenes of violence and inured to habits of war, was brutalized, anarchic, The Rise of Brandenburg 17 unused to curb or restraint, and profoundly unwilling once more to submit to discipline and acquire the train- ing necessary for fruitful social cooperation. Such were the elements of German decay in 1648, bad enough under any circumstances but rendered acutely alarming by Germany's position in Europe. During the long civil war the neighbors of Germany, some of them strong and ambitious powers, had natur- ally cast an interested eye upon her confusion. By taking sides with either Protestants or Catholics they were able to insinuate themselves into the situation and had ended by invading her territory. The powers most actively engaged in this policy were France and Sweden. France, under the guidance of Cardinal Richelieu, one of the boldest and cleverest statesmen she has ever produced, entered Germany from the west and established herself on the upper Rhine in the prov- ince of Alsace; at the same time Sweden, yielding to the initiative of her famous and heroic king, Gusta- vus Adolphus, crossed the Baltic sea and planted herself on the German coast, holding firmly in her grasp the province of Pomerania. When the peace of Westphalia concluded the war France and Sweden resolutely insisted that they be re- warded with the territory each had successfully seized. These German losses at two points, west and north, were in themselves a serious blow, but when you now recall that the political effect of the war was to destroy the central government and to leave Germany politically paralyzed, it became highly probable that the loss of Alsace and of the Baltic coast would merely prove the 18 The Making of Modern Germany preface of further seizures. And if these seizures continued, was it not more than likely that other neigh- bors, in addition to France and Sweden, becoming interested would appropriate each one what lay con- venient to his hand and thus effect in the course of time a complete partition of the German realm and a final annihilation of the German name? But even the gray tints thus far contributed do not adequately present the whole desolate picture of Ger- many in 1648. To measure the depth of the country's downfall you must look about in the European world of that day and see Germany in relation to the great movement in which mankind was then engaged. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries constitute a momen- tous period. They witnessed a splendid new birth; in fact it was during their sway that our race laid those broad foundations upon which has been erected the lofty edifice of our recent civilization. Though it is difficult indeed to express in a few words the weighty happening, I must make the attempt. What was it that took place? After long centuries of medieval twilight, in which man had been content to walk a narrow path with humble, downcast eyes, he began to feel the need of an untrammeled outlook. He gazed about him with quickened curiosity, and as day by day the world unfolded a new charm, he gradu- ally became enamored of its loveliness and was stirred to penetrate into its remotest corners. Travel, com- merce, industrial enterprise, and that methodical obser- vation which we call science followed in due order and enriched the mind of man with their varied benefits. The Rise of Brandenburg 19 As a consequence the parochial medieval world slipped away like a dissolving mist and our great, free earth and the celestial universe enfolding it hove gradually into view. Of course I can not tabulate all the fresh forces which were released in man and society and cooper- ated to produce the Modern Age. I shall have to content myself to point out one of these revolution- izing agents, perhaps the most important of all. In the fifteenth century began the Voyages of Discovery. Under the leadership of intrepid Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian adventurers, hardy men such as Prince Henry of Portugal, Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus, and Magellan, sea voyages were under- taken, as a result of which the familiar little continent of Europe shrivelled to its true proportions and the big round world with its land and oceans assumed the physical aspect which it bears for us today. The west- ern hemisphere with North and South America, as well as vast, uncharted tracts of Asia and of Africa, now first disclosed their wonders to the white man and invited him to trade, to conquer, and to settle. This brilliant opening was offered only once — and since there was only one world to discover could be offered only once — to the peoples of Europe, and it was offered in the time when Germany was passing through the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War. It is clear that for a people to make the most of the unique opportunity for power and expansion, it had to have a strong government capable of giving ample pro- tection to the adventurers and merchant-companies who 20 The Making of Modern Germany risked their all to cross the ocean and seize the inaccess- ible and often hostile lands. These facts considered, what European nations were in a position to compete for the exceptional prizes lifting their siren voices from afar? Of course only such as were organized — Por- tugal and Spain first, later England, France, Sweden, and the Dutch. A country like Ireland, conquered by England and deprived of its power of independent action, and such countries as Italy and Poland that were the prey of domestic anarchy, never entered the race at all. And Germany, the object of our particular concern, was definitely eliminated because the Voyages of Discovery with all they meant of splendor and opportunity occurred at the very time of those calami- ties that I have been describing and that brought down upon her the loss of her central government and her final dissolution into three hundred insignificant states. When in 1871 Germany became again united she naturally, in sign of her recovery, went down to the sea in ships and sought out colonies beyond the bounds of Europe. But on whatever land her eye fell there was already established an earlier claimant except in a few tropical regions unsuited as habitations for Europeans. What at that late date Germany could still take pos- session of was unprofitable waste and in no sense the likely basis of a prosperous colonial empire. Essen- tially reunited Germany is therefore a purely European power and this narrow destiny has been meted out to her because of her disastrous eclipse in the heroic age when the trans-European continents were partitioned among the cunning and the strong. The Rise of Brandenburg 21 And her loss was not merely a matter of wealth and power, but, in point of fact, primarily a loss in the realm of mind and character. The Spaniards, French, and English found themselves, they really only discov- ered the reaches of their genius in wrestling with the varied problems cast up by the new world beyond the Atlantic ocean. This will appear to any one who will take the trouble to imagine the history of Spain or France or England apart from their colonial enterprise and the colonial communities which that enterprise called into being. How the glow would fade from the pages of their history without the Spanish Main, the treasure of the Incas, the Indian wars, the search for El Dorado, the northern fur trade and a thousand equally thrilling facts and incidents! Taken together they signify an experience in the fierce heat of which the souls of Spain and France and England, as we have come historically to know them, received their finest edge and quality. And of this invaluable experience stricken and stay-at-home Germany was by decree of fate deprived. A dark and somber picture this of seventeenth cen- tury Germany! But, after all, the situation, however desperate, can not have been entirely without hope. There must have been somewhere in that dead, dull mass of German life a tiny spark that could be made to blaze again, for how else are we to explain that some two hundred years after the loss of her first unity Ger- many, mewing her eagle-youth, was re-created? As I have already stated, it is this process of the second unification that we are going primarily to examine in 22 The Making of Modern Germany these lectures. Therefore by way of introduction I shall now invite your attention to the first inconspicu- ous signs of recovery in the diseased commonwealth — signs that led to movements which, proceeding logically from stage to stage, culminated at last in the famous scene enacted on January 18, 1871, in the Hall of Mir- rors at Versailles. If you will turn to a map (page 30) and find the broad North German plain you will observe that it is crossed by parallel streams, such as the Rhine, the Weser, the Elbe, the Oder, and the Vistula, all of which flow from the south and carry the waters of the central highlands of Europe to the North and Baltic seas. In the heart of that North German plain, be- tween the Elbe and Oder rivers, there existed in the seventeenth century the little state of Brandenburg, in outer semblance very much like Saxony, Hanover, Brunswick, Mecklenburg, and the other German prin- cipalities that lay about it. If I propose to isolate it for examination it is because this state of Brandenburg served as the nucleus of the new Germany. So strange a fact must straightway raise the question why this dominion rather than any of its neighbors should have been thus singled out by destiny. A swift plunge into the history of Brandenburg before and during the seventeenth century will supply the answer. The little state came into being in the early Middle Ages as a march (in German, mark), or military district to protect Germany fronn-the incursions of the numerous Slav tribes to the east. A national outpost organized for war it grew in measure as it NORTH SEA THE TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF PRUSSIA IN • This map shows the territorial growth of Brandenburg-Prussia in the si with its parallel streams of the Rhine, Weser, Elbe, Oder, and Vistula. Bi sand and marsh levels between the Elbe and Oder. When the Great Elect the duchy of Prussia (later called East Prussia). In addition, he had inhei of Cleves. By virtue of the treaty of Westphalia (1648), the Great Elector Magdeburg on the Elbe. It was the above group of lands which he merged His grandson, Frederick William I, acquired in 1720 the mouth of the But the acquisitions which gave Prussia a standing among the great pc added to the Hohenzollern lands Silesia and West Prussia. Silesia enabled knit up the detached East Prussia to the bulk of the monarchy. T RUSSIA 4' : SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES teenth and eighteenth centuries. We have before us the North German plain snburg, the nucleus of modern Germany, is seen, with its capital Berlin, in the ounted the throne in 1640, he was not only lord of Brandenburg, but also of certain small territories on the lower Rhine, here comprized under the name uired the part of Pomerania east of the Oder and the city and territory of an ordered state. • with the port of Stettin, and a section of Pomerania to the west of the river, i of Europe were made by Frederick the Great (1740-86). This sovereign issia to compete with Austria for the control of Germany, and West Prussia The Rise of Brandenburg 23 overcame its enemies. And undoubted progress was made from the first, but the rate of territorial advance was for a long time not particularly striking owing to the circumstances that one of the largest of the Slav tribes, the Poles, presently organized a powerful rival state of their own. In spite of ever increasing diffi- culties, the rulers of Brandenburg, keeping a vigilant lookout, managed gradually to extend their sway, espe- cially in the direction of the Baltic sea, the natural aim of a north-German inland power seeking an economic outlet. In the sixteenth century a very important accession to the original nucleus took place. A branch of the ruling line of Brandenburg had acquired the throne of the duchy of Prussia, and when, in 1618, that branch died out the title to Prussia passed to the main line. The duchy of Prussia of that period was a small state on the coast of the Baltic, to the east of the Vistula river. Its capital and chief port of trade was Koenigs- berg. Though settled by Germans since the thirteenth century, when it was conquered from the heathen and now long since extinct tribe of Prussians, it was never officially incorporated in the German Empire. A hun- dred years after its acquisition by the ruler of Branden- burg, this remote and inconspicuous Prussia gave its name to all the lands accumulated by the reigning house, and completely drove the older name of Brandenburg from common usage. In order not to anticipate, that change will be explained later in its proper chronolog- ical place. All that we must be sure of seizing at this point is that seventeenth century Brandenburg and 24 The Making of Modern Germany Prussia were two distinct and geographically separated provinces of German speech which an accident of in- heritance had given to the same sovereign. A similar succession accident, befalling shortly after- wards, opened the prospect of acquiring the duchy of Pomerania. When, in the year 1631, this duchy, lying on the Baltic sea, between the Vistula and the Oder, lost its last native ruler, Brandenburg, on the basis of kinship and treaties, laid claim to the territory. Owing to the fact that the Thirty Years' War was raging just then and that Sweden presented a counter claim to Pomerania based on the unanswerable argu- ment of possession through conquest, Brandenburg could realize only a part of her expectations, and after long haggling was paid off (1648) with eastern Pom- erania, leaving the more valuable western Pomerania, including the mouth of the river Oder, in the hands of Sweden. None the less she secured by this com- promise a valuable additional coastline on the Baltic. Thus matters stood at the close of the Thirty Years' War. The ruler of Brandenburg, by virtue of his posi- tion at the eastern periphery of Germany, where polit- ical conditions were very much more in flux than in the more settled Rhine regions, had been able to take advantage of certain territorial opportunities and had acquired the duchy of Prussia, eastern Pomerania, and a not inconsiderable number of lesser German dis- tricts, of which Cleves on the lower Rhine calls for particular mention as marking the western limit of the scattered Brandenburg possessions. A look at the map will show that the sovereign's lands now straggled in The Rise of Brandenburg 25 loose array across the whole north-German plain from the Rhine to the Niemen ! Therefore my former state- ment that Brandenburg was in 1648 a state very much like all its neighbors calls for qualification. Through lucky territorial additions it had become the largest in area of all the north-German states and by reason of this circumstance was endowed with a notable material force; in fact the material force was so considerable that under proper organization there was reason to believe that the state would reach a development en- abling its ruler to enforce a respect to which the impotent little princes all around could never hope to aspire. With quickened interest we now direct our glance to the all-important question of the organization of the little north-German territory. That first organization, its various evolutionary phases, its successes and fail- ures, and finally the many remarkable men who pre- sided over the work, will henceforth engage our attention. And at the very head of the list of states- men-builders we encounter the brilliant name of the Elector Frederick William. His family, which bore the name of Hohenzollern, had exercised rule in Bran- denburg since the beginning of the fifteenth century, that is, for over two hundred years prior to Frederick William's accession. The Hohenzollerns had pro- duced some sturdy, capable men, as the steady advance of Brandenburg would go to prove, but they had not yet given birth to an energetic and compelling person- ality. If the Elector Frederick William was the first Hohenzollern who acquired a European reputation, 26 The Making of Modern Germany that was due, in fairness be it said, to his undoubted talents but, in hardly less degree, to his exceptional opportunity. For, mounting the throne in the year 1640, toward the end of the Thirty Years' War, he was able to take advantage of the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the long agony of Germany and gave the signal for the resumption of civilizing labor throughout the land. Frederick William found himself in the momentous year of the Peace at the head of the territories already enumerated — Brandenburg, Prussia, Pomer- ania, Cleves, etc. — not inconsiderable in total area but widely scattered in space. Each of these had its own administration and was provincially hostile to any close association with its neighbor. Monstrous disunion and confusion, hardly conceivable by the modern man, were the leading features of the situation and were start- lingly reflected by Frederick William's wealth of titles. While he was elector and margrave in Brandenburg, locally endowed by custom with certain definite rights, he was duke in Prussia on the basis of a local Prussian constitution, duke in Pomerania, with powers deter- mined by Pomeranian law, in fact he was a score or so of different political personalities, some of them infi- nitesimal and ludicrous, and might have gone distraught over his multiple role if he had not from the first decided on a policy of simplification. As a symbol of that policy he encouraged the general use of his chief title of elector (Kurfiirst). That title had in the Mid- dle Ages become attached to the ruler of Brandenburg, and signified that its holder, besides governing Bran- The Rise of Brandenburg 27 denburg, had the right, together with six other leading territorial magnates, to elect the German emperor. The right had once upon a time meant much, but by the seventeenth century, in consequence of the decline of the German constitution, was largely an empty honor. None the less, because of the national signifi- cance of the title, Frederick William preferred it to all others. He became known in his life-time to all his subjects alike as the Elector Frederick William, and because his work proved permanent and beneficent, he has since been called simply and admiringly the Great Elector. Mounting the throne at the youthful age of twenty, the Great Elector ruled for nearly half a century, from 1640 to 1688. He showed from the first, in addition to a tireless energy, a remarkable comprehension of finance, economics, and administration as contributory factors in the upbuilding and strengthening of a state. At the same time his every step in the foreign field gave evidence of a broad and clear vision of the entangled politics of Europe. Making allowance for the smaller scale on which he worked, we may unhesitatingly declare that he takes rank with the greatest constructive statesmen of the seventeenth century; with men like Cardinal Richelieu in France and Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden. Cardinal Richelieu, above all, we are obliged to think on studying that minister's famous reorganization of the French government, must have supplied Frederick William with some elements of his policy. The central thought that inspired the Great Elector 28 The Making of Modern Germany and irradiated all his plans was the perception of the woeful impotence of Germany at the end of the Thirty Years' War. He observed that there were many pow- erful neighbors peering covetously over the German boundary and, as he read the signs in the sky, he con- cluded that the time would come, and in all probability come soon, when, resuming the policy followed in the late conflict, these neighbors would combine to effect a complete partition of the helpless German lands. Fred- erick William was filled with patriotic regret and even anguish of spirit at this prospect, but as matters stood — the central government destroyed, himself the insig- nificant prince of a ruined province, the whole German community exhausted and reduced to barbarism — there was little he could do effectively to help the situa- tion. But though he might not prove the savior of the fatherland, he need at least not sit idly by, awaiting with hands folded in his lap the clap of doom. As an active, practical man he could find a task, limited per- haps in scope, but worthy of engaging his whole energy and intelligence. That task, he came to see with grad- ually enlarging vision, was to take the territory of Brandenburg- Prussia in hand and to organize it as thoroughly and effectively as he knew how. Then, should Germany's troubles continue, as was only too likely, there at least would be his own state, a solid nucleus in the midst of a fluid and chaotic swirl. During his long reign the Great Elector worked steadily at this constructive program, the main features of which are easily recognizable. Most important to his mind was a new central administration, all the offi- The Rise of Brandenburg 29 cials of which were to depend upon himself. He felt that without a compact government, the social order and cooperation which were necessary after the long anarchy of war could not be attained, nor the assurance be given to peasant and citizen that they would enjoy the product of their labor. Under the system he had in mind, the taxes assessed according to law would flow into a central treasury and be applied by state officials to genuine community ends, such as justice, roads and canals, forests and mines, and, finally, an army. An army! That in Frederick William's manly view was the necessary keystone of the whole plan. With the German situation characterized by political imper- manence and threatened with ruin he very reasonably made up his mind that it was indispensable for Bran- derburg to be able to defend itself, and, when the occa- sion rose, to meet force with force. Though imposed by his common sense, the policy was supplemented by every patriotic instinct that stirred in his breast and led him to dedicate with an almost niggard zeal every thaler that he could spare from his private allowance as well as from his public resources to the assembling and equipping of a standing army. Of course with his small territory and reduced funds he could not create an army at will, because soldiers cost money, but he could strive to make his force effective in proportion to its size, and that this was successfully done was proved by its creditable participation in several wars. In the course of these wars which, since the age was turbulent, were numerous, the Elector's troops appeared in the field against Poland, Sweden, France, and even 30 The Making of Modern Germany Turkey. The details need not occupy us here. Suffice it to say that all the wars conducted by Frederick Wil- liam with his small, though well-disciplined force, served in the first place to banish disaster from the threshold of Brandenburg, and that second, being courageously if not always triumphantly waged, they secured the little state a leading place in northern Germany and even carried its reputation modestly afield beyond the Rhine and Alps. At this point we may pause, reiterating that Fred- erick William's central administration and strong army became the fundamental institutions of Brandenburg- Prussia, and that, created in the second half of the seven- teenth century, they were steadily improved in the fol- lowing generations. Only in their light can the political movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which came to a head in the rebirth of Germany, be understood. Of course, by themselves they were of small account, being just machinery; but properly sup- ported by statesmen and rulers capable of contributing intelligence and purpose, supported finally by the reborn German society itself, encouraged to take up once more its interrupted labors in the field, shop, school, and laboratory, army and administration proved them- selves more than mechanical arrangements, and un- doubtedly served as the historical agents of a mighty national revolution. Let our final word today be this: in the ill-starred seventeenth century German national life in all its aspects was in complete decomposition. In the disorder and wild flux a hard, resistant nucleus was necessary which in the nick of time, when the The Rise of Brandenburg 31 country's need was greatest, was supplied by Branden- burg under the Great Elector. My next lecture will show how the fortunate and forceful emergence of Brandenburg proved the beginning of a new Germany. n Frederick the Great and the Advent of Prussia as a European Power §>econd Lecture FREDERICK THE GREAT AND THE ADVENT OF PRUSSIA AS A EUROPEAN POWER ¥ N my first lecture I discussed the gradual overthrow •*• of the elder Germany founded in medieval times, and showed that by the year 1648, at the end of the Thirty Years' War, that overthrow was as good as complete. I also pointed out that the older German state was no sooner dead than there began a quiet, inconspicuous work of reconstruction which centered in the little north-German state of Brandenburg. En- couraging signs of vigor became apparent in Branden- burg immediately after the treaty of Westphalia, largely owing to the presence at the head of affairs of a born ruler of men, Frederick William, the Great Elector, and to his calling into existence a central admin- istration and a professional army. In Frederick Wil- liam, a man of solid attainments, intelligent without brilliance, cautious and yet enterprising, we hail the first of the makers of Modern Germany. In my lecture today I purpose to speak of Frederick H, called the Great. He was the great-grandson of the Great Elector and looms as large in the eighteenth century history of the state as did Frederick William in that of the seventeenth century. Frederick n came to the throne in 1740, exactly one hundred years after [35] 36 The Making of Modern Germany the Great Elector, and held the scepter until his death in 1786. By constant vigilance and extraordinary au- dacity he was enabled to strengthen and enlarge his inheritance, thereby lifting himself and his dominion to the dignity of a great European power. But before I pursue Frederick's remarkable story, I wish to discuss a few general issues and developments, the removal of which from our path will greatly facili- tate our progress. First of all, let me dispose finally of the change of name from Brandenburg to Prussia. I have already pointed out that by the accident of in- heritance the ruler of Brandenburg gradually accumu- lated a number of other dominions, among which was a province, Prussia by name, on the southern shore of the Baltic sea. Now in the year 1700 the then ruler of Brandenburg, son and heir of the Great Elector and an insignificant man taken up with pomp and ceremony, got the idea into his head of calling himself king, a title thus far unknown in Brandenburg where, as we have seen, the current designation for the sovereign was elector. If his vanity had taken counsel of historical logic, he would have blossomed forth to the world as king of Brandenburg. But he preferred, on grounds which need not be examined here, to adopt the style of king of Prussia, taking his royal title from his relatively recent Baltic acquisition. From that moment the cus- tom struck root of including all the scattered dominions of the Hohenzollerns under the name of Prussia. The need of some common name for the increasing territories of the house was imperative, and what, after all, was more natural than to take it from the title of Frederick the Great 37 the sovereign? If he was king of Prussia, then Prussia was a satisfactory name to designate the totality of his dominions. None the less Brandenburg and not the Baltic shoreland of Prussia is the true kernel of the Hohenzollern state. Let us dismiss the relatively unim- portant question by repeating that, beginning with the year 1700, we are justified in calling the state with which we are concerned Prussia, and in distinguishing its ruler with the title king.* Another matter that it seems to me important to dis- cuss before going on with the achievements of Fred- erick II is the eighteenth-century theory of the Prussian state. Permit me to remind you that the idea is often put forth that states originate in theories and that the laws and institutions of a given state are no more than the practical application of a theory mysteriously inher- ent in that state. In spite of the prevalence of the idea, I find myself unable to accept it. Like most pragmatic students I hold that the institutions of every state under the sun have their origin in the necessities and habits of the community, and that only long after the institu- tions have taken shape, certain reflective students, given to generalization in the field of politics, come forward and deduce from the institutions a set of fundamental principles which they announce as constituting the spiritual essence or theory of the state. Assuming for the sake of argument that I am right, and that the laws and institutions of Prussia were born out of the country's political necessities, it is none the * For further details concerning Prussia — the original Baltic Prussia — see Appendix F. 38 The Making of Modern Germany less true that they are reducible to theoretic statement, and that a consideration of this statement may serve to throw a welcome light on the fundamental character of the government. The usual declaration with regard to eighteenth-century Prussia is that its basic principle was patriarchal control, that is, that the state was omnipotent and that it totally overshadowed the indi- vidual citizen by subordinating his activity and happi- ness to its own ends and interests. Accepting this defi- nition, we become aware that the spirit of eighteenth- century Prussia was in sharp contrast with the con- temporary spirit of such countries as England and our own United States. In the eighteenth century we insti- tuted and, for that matter still possess, the individualist state. » The theory of the individualist state may be phrased in some such form as this: that the government be obliged to keep as aloof as possible from the affairs and activities of the citizens, and that it permit the development of the social and economic life of the com- munity under the free play of competition. Thus Prus- sia and the United States in the eighteenth century were dedicated to opposed theories of control. However, the point to which I desire to return and on which, as a student of history, I must lay stress, is that our indi- vidualist state is just as much the result of special American conditions as the patriarchal state of Prussia is the result of special conditions in Germany. It is not as if the American and Prussian peoples in the eighteenth century exercised a free choice in the mat- ter of their state and, like Hercules in the ancient Greek Frederick the Great 39 fable, stood for a while in deep reflection at the parting of the ways. Nothing in their history would remotely justify us in representing them as ever making a con- scious choice among two or more state-theories ; rather each solved certain difficult besetting problems as best it could and the result in one case was the Prussian mon- archy, in the other the government of the United States. Excellent testimony in support of this view of the connection between social conditions and political insti- tutions is supplied by what has happened in the United States within the last twenty years. In that period the terms of many of our American problems suffered a considerable change. Certain economic phenomena, notably the great trusts, aroused an alarmed attention and caused a sharp criticism to be leveled at our too rampant individualism, hitherto our chief source of pride. Social and political conditions, too, bringing bosses, graft, and labor struggles to the fore, seemed to betoken a growing measure of national ill health. More and more we inclined to ascribe the fundamental cause to our captains of industry and to their secret control of the elections and the government. Mr. Roosevelt coined the phrase about malefactors of great wealth, and earnestly invited us to beware of them as a menace to the republic. Though certainly not unanimously con- verted to this view, we have generally come around to the decision to bind the rich and powerful with restric- tions hitherto unknown in our history, in order that they may not use their individualist freedom, coupled as it is with disportionate political power, against the interests of the community. Accordingly, we have put the rail- 40 The Making of Modern Germany roads under the supervision of the Interstate Commerce Commission, we have prosecuted and dissolved the trusts, and we have passed scores of laws intended to protect the factory workers against excessive exploita- tion. In consequence of this development our loosely ar- ranged individualist state has assumed community func- tions which it formerly eschewed, and has measurably adopted the practice and theory with which Prussia became identified as early as the days of the Great Elector. There we may let the matter of the informing spirit behind the institutions of Prussia and the United States rest for the present, merely reasserting, as we pass on, that our eighteenth-century individualist liberty was no more our merit than the subjection to an all- powerful state was a Prussian fault, and that the Prus- sian patriarchal system represented the historical, and therefore the only conceivable, solution of the special problems that confronted Frederick William and his successors. From the theory of the Prussian state we pass by a natural transition to the dynasty of the Hohenzollerns who wielded the patriarchal power. Now this dynasty has undoubtedly produced a number of remarkable men. But the idea occasionally propounded by certain Prussian super-patriots that the members of the Hohen- zollern dynasty represent a higher level of capacity than the dynasties of other European states is diffi- cult to uphold. Let us look at the facts. Of note- worthy men there is, first, the Great Elector who founded the state and who stands like a Gulliver amidst Frederick the Great 41 the Lilliputian shapes of seventeenth century Germany; then there is Frederick n, called the Great, with whom we are about to deal; finally, two nineteenth-century sovereigns, William I and William II, whom we shall treat later, appear to be above the average in natural endowment for their appointed task. But against this list of distinguished rulers there must be set an equally large group which does not rise above mediocrity, and brings down the efficiency index to about the figure maintained by the other reigning houses of Europe. There remains, however, an observation to submit on this head which opens a path to an understanding of the success which the Hohenzollerns have undeniably achieved. The organization of the Prussian state, as I have disclosed it, called for a very active kind of sov- ereign since his authoritative position put upon him an enormous number of duties. Now such duties, regu- larly exercised, made for a tradition of work and serv- ice which, once established, would prove a support for the weaker spirits and hold them to a standard far beyond their personal worth. This is well illustrated if we compare the sovereigns of Prussia in the eighteenth century, when kings counted for more than ever before or since in the history of Europe, with the sovereigns of a country like France. The prominent eighteenth century figure of France was Louis XV. This king found himself at the head of a brilliant state, with countless resources at his disposal but with no very solidly established tradition of royal service, and in consequence he fell victim to the many insidious temptations of power. He ended by becoming 42 The Making of Modern Germany a self-indulgent oriental despot passing his days in a ceaseless round of pleasures. Now Prussia never had a Louis XV either in the eighteenth or in any other cen- tury, and it is not because there is anything in the moral stamina of the house of Hohenzollern that is superior to the moral stamina of the house of Bourbon. It is simply because an honorable tradition of state service imposed itself on the rulers of Prussia from generation to generation. Though this Hohenzollern conception of office is a difficult factor to evaluate precisely in the upgrowth of the country, it is, without any doubt, of signal importance. I am now ready to turn to Frederick II, commonly called the Great, who occupied the throne of Prussia for well nigh half a century ( 1740-86) . When he suc- ceeded to the crown he was a young man, twenty-eight years old. He had shown from his birth a merry, pleas- urable disposition which made him love the society of his kind, and he had exhibited a receptive intelligence eager to assimilate the products of literature, music, science, and philosophy. In the years when he was growing up, the most impressive literature and art of Europe hailed from France, and it was therefore quite natural that, lured by its novelty and charm, he should have directed his study to the stirring movement among his western neighbors. Like many young men of similar tastes and enthusi- asm he nursed the hope of a literary career and planned to link his name with the immortals of the French Parnassus — Racine, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and their peers. Of course nothing came of it in the end, if we Frederick the Great 43 except a solemn row of unimportant volumes entitled Oeuvres de Frederic II, and a passionate but hectic friendship with Voltaire. This was so characteristic of Frederick and summarized so many of the hopes and disappointments of his life, that I must be permitted to say a few words about it, however insignificant, from the point of view of our story of the Prussian state, a purely personal relationship may seem to be. Voltaire, half a generation older than Frederick, was singled out by the impressionable youth as the man of men, the authentic prophet with an intimate and sav- ing message. On his own initiative, and with the usual palpitations of a young enthusiast, he entered into cor- respondence with his idol, desiring nothing so much as to become Voltaire's friend. This early courtship was the happiest period of their association; but later, when Frederick became king and master of his own destiny, he resolved to go farther, and invited Voltaire to visit him in his dominions. The French author made several stays, more or less prolonged, under the roof of his royal friend, but alas ! friction developed, due to temperamental differences, and finally led to a grievous clash. The violent breach between king and philosopher gave birth to much malicious comment which has not entirely subsided to the present day. It is not worth while repeating, since it does not contribute to our true knowledge of Frederick; but what is worth while saying is that the early courtship of Voltaire drew the young Prussian prince into the fresh intel- lectual currents of the eighteenth century, supplied him with a Voltairean or rationalist mentality, and at least 44 The Making of Modern Germany materially helped in fitting him for that role of enlight- ened despot with which he is identified. Though the strong natural bent disclosed by Fred- erick in his youth toward the literature and philosophy of his day seemed to his tutors and friends the earnest of a great future, it flatly failed to win the approval of his father. That was King Frederick William I, who ruled the state from 1713 to 1740, and who in a fuller account of Prussia than is possible here would have to be conceded a prominent place. As an admin- istrator Frederick William I displayed a remarkable initiative and zeal, and in view of the care he gave to the problems of agriculture and colonization well de- serves the title of the Great Economist (der grosse Wirth) which he has won from Prussian scholars. But though honest and capable, he had a boorish disposition and was filled with a frank scorn for the refinements of the mind and of society. The constant playing on the flute by the young prince and his writing of French verses were in the father's eyes the symptoms of an intolerable effeminacy. Der Fritz ist ein efemimrter Kerl, was his oft repeated slur upon his son and he gradually made up his mind that unless matters changed radically, Fritz should never succeed him on the Prus- sian throne. At first he only nagged and criticised; then, his patience outdone, he gave commands. The result was a clash between father and son culminating in one of the most notorious court-scandals of the eighteenth cen- tury. I can not stop to sketch the whole drama here with its plots and passions, its tragic and comic episodes. Frederick the Great 45 I can only state briefly that the son refusing to yield to parental tyranny at last formed the resolution to seek safety in flight. But before he could carry out his plan he was apprehended and summarily cast into prison. The father, excited almost to the pitch of insanity, talked wildly of having the prince shot as a deserter from the army and a traitor to the country. The bosom friend and accomplice of Frederick, young lieutenant Katte, the grim parent actually had tried by a military court and executed under the eyes of his recalcitrant and wayward heir. Then gentler counsels won the upper hand and the young man was reprieved, but not until he had eaten prison fare for one whole year and taken a solemn vow to the effect that he would henceforth curb his self-willed course and subject him- self in all things to his father's authority. There now dawned a new and Spartan period for the prince who at the age of nineteen entered upon an austere curriculum, the purpose of which was to pre- pare him as thoroughly as possible for his kingly duties. He was first apprenticed to a minor bureau in the civil service and, starting as a common clerk reporting for work at six o'clock in the morning, he had to make his way through the various stages of the Prussian admin- istration. Then he was readmitted to the army, and by similar close application worked his way up as an officer until he became familiar with every minute requirement of the military system. Probably no royal heir-apparent has ever received so thorough a schooling in the practical duties of his office as was imposed upon the chastened Fritz by his 46 The Making of Modern Germany stern parent and taskmaster. Of course his fresh spirit suffered from this discipline and something bright and confident went out of Frederick's life never to return; but may we not affirm that the hard father contributed that quality of iron which, originally lacking, was neces- sary to give a foundation of solid strength to the gifts and graces of the young prince? When, after ten years of strict apprenticeship, Fred- erick came to the throne, the expectation in Prussia and Europe, founded on the young man's well-known literary inclinations, was that there would now be a radical change of system in the Prussian state, and that presently, in the place of the shrill cry of the drill ser- geant, there would be heard in the sandy wastes of rough and backward Brandenburg the song of the muses to the accompaniment of lyre and harp. Needless to say that all such expectations were cruelly deceived. Without denying his love of letters, Frederick II lived and moved from the first day of power in the traditions of the Prussian crown, and recognized as his main task the support and enlargement of his inherited state. Hardly on the throne, he plunged into the political whirlpool of Europe and thus created that issue which dominated Germany for the next one hundred years, the rivalry between Prussia and Austria. At this junc- ture it becomes necessary to refer briefly to the situa- tion of Austria in the eighteenth century. Austria was a south-German state which, beginning in a small feudal way, gradually rose to eminence in the valley of the Danube. Its dynasty was the family of the Hapsburgs, and its capital the city of Vienna, favor- Frederick the Great 47 ably located on the blue waters of the great central artery. By a successful policy of wars and marriage- alliances the Hapsburgs, in the course of many genera- tions, accumulated the various provinces and dominions, such as Hungary, Bohemia, and the Tyrol, which still in this twentieth century make up the bulk of their pos- sessions. Even before the Reformation, Austria was the most considerable German state, and had acquired a kind of ascendancy over the rest of Germany which expressed itself in the recurrent election of a Hapsburg prince to the imperial office. When in the Thirty Years' War, Germany, as we have seen, went to pieces, Aus- tria continued to enjoy a position of preeminence, for her ruler continued to be elected German emperor, though under a constitution so emasculated as to make his position merely ornamental. Under these narrowing circumstances, political life in Austria might have been smitten with paralysis if an opening had not been afforded elsewhere. From an Austrian viewpoint the greatest event of the eighteenth century was the decay of Turkey. In measure as the weakness of the Sultan became apparent, Austria was encouraged to engage in a policy of expansion down the Danube and immediately met with considerable success. In consequence, she could afford to neglect Germany and desist from any effort to change the desolate situation there. In fact, Austria substantially resigned herself to the view that it was best to accept the settled German stagnation on the understanding that she be left in the undisturbed enjoyment of the few decorative German rights which were still hers. 48 The Making of Modern Germany Matters standing thus, the continued exercise by Austria of the nominal headship of Germany meant nothing more or less than the perpetuation of the coun- try's impotence. Right here belongs the significance of Frederick the Great in the eyes of history. He took it on himself to challenge the traditional ascendancy of Austria, thereby inaugurating a fierce competition be- tween that state and upstart Prussia. By Frederick's bold act the dead German life, which lay like a wide, ice-covered marsh, was stirred for the first time in a hundred years and showed a faint movement as though spring were in the wind. In the eyes of the historian at least, if not in Frederick's own eyes or in those of his contemporaries, he was the innovator at whose chal- lenge sounded the knell of the old order in Germany. The rivalry between Austria and Prussia, which Frederick called into being, lasted for more than a hundred years, from 1740 to 1866, and led in its final consequences to the rebirth of Germany. Of this far conclusion the Prussian king had hardly a remote ink- ling. He was no German patriot, and no wonder, since there were no German patriots in existence anywhere and could not well be because there was no Germany that called for patriotism. He was the king of Prussia and a political realist, with a roving eye searching the horizon for opportunities to better the position of his state. It was in this spirit, as a practical Prussian statesman, I say again, not as an idle German dreamer, that he took up, on his accession, the nearby question of Silesia and therewith precipitated an Austro-Prussian war; and like many a man building better than he knew, Frederick the Great 49 when, a century later, the harvest of his deeds had ripened, he was seen as the forerunner who had uncon- sciously prepared the ground for a new Germany. The province of Silesia, which caught the eye of the young king, was an Austrian territory along the Oder river. By virtue of it, the Hapsburg possessions ex- tended into northern Germany and bordered upon Brandenburg. To certain limited sections of Silesia the house of Hohenzollern held a claim which the Great Elector had vigorously pressed, but Austria had resisted persuasion and threats alike and the controversy had made as good as no headway in half a hundred years. In October, 1740, some five months after Frederick had mounted the Prussian throne, the Emperor Charles VI, the last male of the Hapsburg line, died, and im- mediately the question as to who would succeed him at Vienna leaped to the front and engaged the attention of the European cabinets. Charles had made the testa- mentary provision that, in default of male heirs, he should be succeeded by his daughter, Maria Theresa, and his arrangements, embodied in a so-called Prag- matic Sanction, had been very generally accepted by the courts of Europe. But, as usual, a paper treaty was found to be a very inadequate barrier against the assaults of cupidity, and Charles vi was no sooner laid in the vault of his fathers than ominous movements on the part of Bavaria, France, and Spain made it clear that these powers would vamp up old claims of one sort or another wherewith to assert a prerogative to a portion of Maria Theresa's rich dominions. Young and clear-eyed Frederick of Prussia saw from 50 The Making of Modern Germany what quarter the wind was blowing, and quickly resolved not to be behind his neighbors. He, too, had a claim — the aforesaid claim to parts of Silesia — and to his calculating mind the young Austrian heiress was in so perilous a position that Prussia would probably only have to present its ancient bill energetically to cause her to pay it in full. In consequence he marched an army into Silesia. The act meant war — a war which, regardless of the validity or non-validity of his Silesian claims, can not reasonably be called other than a war of aggression. Frederick himself in his Histoire de mor. temps, has taken substantially the same view. As I read his simple and unpretentious account, he saw un- folded before him an opportunity to carry his state to a new level of importance, and considered it pusillani- mous to let the chance slip by unused. Of course Maria Theresa resisted an attack, for which, to her mind, there was no possible warrant, but as her other ene- mies, Bavaria, France, and Spain, descended upon her at the same time, she became engulfed in a vast struggle known as the War of the Austrian Succession and last- ing from 1740 to 1748. In the course of it, in order to ease the pressure exercised upon her from so many sides she resolved to come to terms with Frederick. The result was that in a treaty signed in 1742 and con- firmed, after a second struggle, in 1745, she made over the province of Silesia to Prussia. Courageously con- tinuing the war with her other opponents, she was enabled not only to hold her own but finally to force a settlement which greatly enhanced the Austrian prestige in the eyes of Europe. Frederick the Great 51 The young woman who sustained the terrible trial of this war proved, in the course of a long reign, to be the most capable sovereign that Austria ever had. Holding the rudder firm as any man, the Empress Maria Theresa was none the less a very feminine spirit, closely attached to her family, and profoundly swayed by her feelings whether of love or resentment. In the late war she had avenged herself on all her enemies who had come down upon her unawares — on all but Frederick, who, firmly possessed of the Silesian prize, was in her sight a sorry instance of how the wicked flourish in this evil world. She had surrendered to him a precious territory, but since it had been wrested from her by armed force, she not unnaturally considered her- self free to take it back in the same way at the first opportunity. With deliberate and extraordinary persistence Maria Theresa undertook to create a political system which would give her an assured preponderance over Prussia, and so, reversing the tables, bring Silesia back into the Austrian fold. Having first attached Russia to herself by formal treaty, she next turned to France. The French negotiations proved extremely difficult, owing to the long-standing feud between the houses of Haps- burg and Bourbon, and the reluctance of France to see the desirability of a changed course. However, by 1756 an Austro-French treaty was perfected, and now Prussia was surrounded on three sides and could be crushed, it might reasonably be hoped, in a single vigor- ous campaign. Still the matter was, after all, not so simple as Maria 52 The Making of Modern Germany Theresa's confident resentment pictured it. With un- equalled political daring Frederick II coupled a mili- tary skill which made him the greatest captain of his time, and although he did not for a moment underesti- mate the force of the gathering tempest, he did not quail before it. He looked around for aid and found a helper in Great Britain. Great Britain in the eighteenth century was involved with France in a tremendous struggle for the rule of the seas and the trans-oceanic continents, and this quarrel, dating back in its origin over a hundred years, happened to be ripe for settle- ment at the exact moment which the Empress Maria Theresa had chosen to even scores with Frederick. In the year 1756 an Anglo-French conflict was a certainty, and if France was to have the aid of Austria in that struggle, Great Britain was sure to make an eager bid for Prussian help. Through the respective necessities of London and Berlin the two cabinets were forced into an alliance, and thus it was, with Great Britain at his side, that Frederick met the descent upon him of his three continental neighbors, Austria, France, and Russia. The struggle that followed, one of the most gigantic and far-reaching in history, is familiar to us all as the Seven Years' War (1756-63). How it was fought out by England and France on all the seas and not only confirmed Britannia as the ruler of the waves but gave her India and Canada as well, is sufficiently known. To Americans this chapter of the Seven Years' War is so preeminently important that the Austro-Prussian com- bat sinks by comparison into insignificance. And yet Frederick the Great 53 it is the Austro-Prussian phase with which we are here alone concerned. Therefore having reminded you of the world-wide ramifications of the Seven Years' War, I shall confine my attention to the struggle in Central Europe. It was eminently like Frederick, perhaps the most nimble and collected spirit of his time, that, as soon as he was certain in his mind the blow was about to fall, he sprang to anticipate it. A quick offensive would at least enable him to strike his enemies before they had combined their movements, and naturally he pounced upon Austria, his main enemy, first. But the campaign of 1756 was only partially successful, for Austria was not surprised and parried the blow. The next year the concerted advance of Austria from the south, of France from the west, and of Russia from the east was only stopped by two sweeping victories, one over the French at Rossbach, the other over the Austrians at Leuthen; as for the Russians, when the news of these swift strokes reached them they retired from the scene without await- ing an attack. Beginning with the third campaign, that of 1758, a British army operating in western Germany stood off the French and considerably relieved the terrible pres- sure upon the harassed Frederick. But Austria and Russia by themselves continued to constitute a terrible menace, as will appear at a glance as soon as the vast area of united Austria and Russia is compared with that of little Prussia and their enormous preponderance in money and men is taken into account. Against such odds Frederick maintained a bold front, though it was 54 The Making of Modern Germany plain that he could not keep up the fight forever. In 1759 he was badly defeated by the Russians at Kuners- dorf, in eastern Brandenburg, and from that time showed unmistakable signs of exhaustion. It was only by one of the most remarkable examples of moral courage ever given that he did not regard his cause as lost and cry for quarter. Step by step, like hunters stalking a quarry, the Aus- trians and Russians closed in upon him until he had hardly more in hand than the original nucleus of Bran- denburg. Probably no man in his dominion beside him- self believed there was any further use in fighting. Thus he stood his ground, defiant to the last, when a stroke of fortune saved the day. At the end of the sixth cam- paign (January, 1762) the Czarina Elizabetji of Rus- sia died, and her successor, as capriciously moved by friendship for Frederick as Elizabeth had been by hate, insisted on making peace and restoring to Prussia all the land he held. Maria Theresa was profoundly chagrined at this desertion and stuck to the war with Prussia for another year. But when she now began to be pushed back in her turn, she sadly made up her mind that her efforts were vain and, in February, 1763, con- cluded peace, at Hubertsburg in Saxony, on the basis of a return to the conditions before the war. The great seven years' struggle was over, and tech- nically it was a draw, for neither Austria nor Prussia gained a foot of territory. But the fact stands out that Maria Theresa was obliged to relinquish her plan of getting back Silesia and to accept its incorporation in Prussia as final. That made the struggle in effect a Frederick the Great 55 Pmssian victory, especially as Prussia had shown such strength that she had now to be accepted as a great power in Europe, capable of negotiating on a basis of equality with all the rest. Specifically for Germany, the war meant that Austria, preeminent so long within the German fold, was obliged to share her control with another state and to admit the northern upstart into a reluctant partnership. From the end of the Seven Years' War a silent agreement made Prussia ascendant in the north, with Austria retaining the leadership in the regions of the south. Henceforth, as concerns the political life of the country, there were two Germanics, each eyeing the other with jealousy, animosity, and even aversion. The deep estrangement augured ill for the future of the nation. In some respects it was not so much Prussia that came out of the war with honor, as the Prussian king. With remarkable unanimity admiring Europe turned him into a hero and hailed him as Frederick the Great. Everybody felt and expressed that against the enor- mous odds which Austria had brought into the field, the Prussian state had been able to maintain itself, primarily, by virtue of the military skill, the moral courage, and the steady endurance of one man. But though the world saw in Frederick chiefly the soldier, the truth is that he never set overmuch store by his military reputation. " My successes," he said, tem- pering the exaggerations of an encomiast with the amused irony which never deserted him, " my successes are largely due to luck and the stupidity of my ene- mies " ! He regarded himself as a state-builder, a man 56 The Making of Modern Germany of peace, and wished primarily to leave behind him a strengthened structure diversified and enriched with varied economic activity. While he did not occupy himself much with the theo- retic study of economics, he plunged with an eagerness that balked at no physical exertion into all the practical problems of agriculture, trade, and' industry. Holding the patriarchal view derived from his ancestors that an intelligent control was necessary, and that, if honestly exercised, it could only be productive of good to the state, he did not scruple to summon, as it were, the whole labor of his people before his throne. Of course, to present-day Americans, accustomed to free, competitive activity and abominating the action of the government, his interference often looks like foolish meddling with the laws of nature, and even the unbiased observer will discover that much of it was ill-advised and hurtful. Trade, for instance, which always flourishes most lux- uriously when it is unhampered, Frederick burdened with all kinds of regulations and embargoes in the sup- posed interest of this or that infant industry. All things considered, it is plain that the great king was ruled by the central idea that the chief desideratum for Prussia was the development of her manufactures, and that it was not too much to pay for this benefit with a very high duty against foreign goods. Let his own words tell his purpose. " I prohibit as much as I dare, in order to force my subjects to manufacture," he wrote to one of his ministers. Whether or no the game was worth the candle let others say, but the undeniable truth is that Frederick inaugurated, how- FREDERICK n, CALLED THE GREAT Frederick the Great 57 ever modestly, the Prussian industrial development. Before he died the native woolen mills more than supplied the home market, while the Silesian linens traveled as far as England and America. Even silk goods were turned out in considerable quantity. His taking up this last-named industry shows him in a most characteristic light. Since imported silks sold at a good price on the local market, why not let the manu- facturing profit be earned at home? For years he dedi- cated considerable sums from the treasury to help the new business obtain a firm footing. When the capital- ists complained of the difficulty of getting raw silk and of its high cost, he distributed cocoons among the peas- ants and ordered the government agents in the country to line the highways with mulberry trees, on the leaves of which the cocoons lived. In the long run the enter- prise proved impracticable, for the cocoons called for more sun than bleak and chilly Brandenburg could furnish, but Frederick with his indomitable will kept up hope to the end that the various difficulties would be overcome. If, on the whole, the funds used to stimulate the silk industry must be declared to have been wasted, numerous successes in other enterprises more than made up for this failure and justified Fred- erick in the feeling that his economic policy, with its feature of state interference, was a move in the right direction. However, in spite of varied industrial beginnings, Frederician Prussia was, and remained essentially, an agricultural state. Let us not be in the least doubt on this head, and let us understand the social structure 58 The Making of Modern Germany which the agricultural economy involved. Generally speaking, the land of Prussia was divided into great estates owned by feudal landlords, familiarly called Junkers. A considerable area was owned by the sov- ereign himself, in fact his estates ran into the hundreds and made him the landlord of the country. They were thrown together for administrative purposes into a royal domain and managed from a central office at Berlin, returning a revenue which was one of the most important items of the annual budget of the state. Frederick, fully aware of the value of this resource for his purse, was tireless in urging improvements in the royal domain by introducing fertilizers, bettering the stock, and varying the crops. Naturally the progress made on the royal farms, many of which served as experiment stations, imposed itself by force of imitation on the neighboring Junkers. But improved methods and increased returns did not mean social changes in the countryside. For centuries the estates had been worked in accordance with feudal usage; that is, the workers were peasants legally sub- ject to the landlords and obliged to pay for the little holdings on which they lived by three, four, or even five days' labor per week on the master's land. These conditions made the Prussian peasants serfs, and depressed them to a position only better than slavery in that they could not be bought and sold and usually had some vested rights in their bits of land. In the general absence of a large, progressive, and enlightened Prussian middle class stirring up criticism of these conditions, Frederick never ventured to come Frederick the Great 59 forward with a program of peasant reform. Since the Junkers were in possession and constituted the most powerful class in the state, it was best to let well enough alone. Wise monarchs do not revolutionize the socie- ties they govern merely for the sake of experiment. By fostering an industry and calling the nucleus of a middle class into being, he created the only counterweight which, in the course of time, would prove effective in diminishing the influence of the landlord group. How- ever far we may go in giving Frederick credit for certain constructive features of his economic program, he is certainly not to be classed as a social reformer. My limited time permits me to give only a hurried consideration to the many other instructive features of Frederick's reign. The king created a bureau which put the management of the national forests on a scien- tific and systematic basis; he maintained a good net- work of highways, and added a number of canals to those already in use; he drained bogs and colonized peasants from other parts of Germany on the reclaimed land. His method of work was highly individual. Week in and week out, for many hours each day, he sat in his cabinet dispatching the affairs which his secretaries submitted. With the advent of summer he regularly traveled from one end of his kingdom to the other in order to keep his eye responsive to the realities of life and to hinder his spirit from drying up in the tedium of a deadly routine. Let us see Frederick as he was — an absolutist administrator of the eighteenth century, a typical enlightened despot who labored with energy, 60 The Making of Modern Germany intelligence, and devotion to increase the population and well-being of the state. Everything for the people, nothing by the people, was essentially his motto. And a careful consideration of all the circumstances will impose the view that this Frederician system would continue until the urban classes, still very negligible, in spite of an industrial beginning, had lifted them- selves to a higher economic and intellectual level and insisted on being heard in all matters of public policy. A final word about the great king's army. If, after his first plunge into the war of the Austrian succession, he was far from wishing to use it wantonly for the sake of " glory," he had no two opinions as to the need of keeping it ready for defense. In this respect he shared the view of all his predecessors beginning with the Great Elector, founder of the state. If by any chance his interest in the army should ever have flagged, a single glance at the map, showing his exposed position in the heart of Europe, would have sufficed to spur him to renewed military activity. In consequence of an unrelaxed attention, his permanent forces swelled to a figure which was out of all pro- portion to the wealth and population of the state. Toward the end of his life he boasted an army which was little short of 200,000 men, approximately the figure of the standing armies of such large powers as Austria and France! To keep the ranks full a recruiting system was required which awakens interest as it was not far re- moved from universal, compulsory service. But the compulsion was a class compulsion and applied only Frederick the Great 61 to the peasants, not to the burghers. As the officers were exclusively drawn from the landed gentry, and mere burghers were jealously excluded from officer positions, the Frederician army was a perfect mirror of the traditional feudal organization of Prussian society. A body of hardy peasants officered by gentle- men to whom they looked up as to superior beings — such was the Frederician army, and as such it had an undeniable solidarity fully proved in the furnace- test of war. But it was the product of a medieval class system which was already becoming antiquated, and the future alone would show whether it would be able to hold its own in the democratic age which was just beginning to dawn. Such for better and worse were the society and institutions of Prussia in the days of Frederick the Great. The other sovereigns of Germany, dazzled by the brilliant successes of the king in peace and war, looked upon him with envy and paid him the flattery of imitation. And now for the first time since the disasters of the Thirty Years' War, new life began to stir through the length and breadth of the German land. It showed first of all in the ideal world, in the realm of the mind. There was a manifest awakening, a casting off of old fetters at some of the universities, notably at Gottingen and Leipzig, while in the class- rooms at Konigsberg Kant expounded his famous philosophy which opened a new era of speculation and differed from the contemporary mechanistic systems by affirming the ethical freedom and therewith the dignity of man as the noblest creature under the 62 The Making of Modern Germany sun. In the field of criticism Lessing and Herder, in lyric and dramatic poetry Goethe and Schiller, made contributions that put German literature on a broad and modern foundation, while music, that art with which the name of Germany is most intimately linked, unfolded its wonders in the moving strains of Bach and Handel. Thus, toward the end of the eighteenth century, in- numerable signs pointed to the rebirth of the German people, a rebirth which, in sharp contrast to the auto- cratic Frederician state, was volksthumlich in the best sense of the word because proceeding out of the depths of the national soul. Curious to reflect, Frederick, the most eminent German of his day, had little understanding for the intellectual revival of his people. Brought up in the elegant French tradition, writing and speaking the Gallic tongue far more flu- ently than his own German, he found the door of his mind locked to an art and literature which had their roots in the soil and which withered in the close atmos- phere of the drawing-room. Not long before his death he wrote a review — naturally in French — of the German writers of his time, the young titans of the Sturm und Drang, and reprimanded them for their rough words and careless forms; they reminded him, he declared, of that uncouth and detestable English barbarian, Guillaume Shakspeare! None the less, a lingering faith in the destiny of his people persuaded him that better things would come and caused him to declare that, like Moses in the desert, he hailed from afar the Promised Land which he would not live to see. Frederick the Great 63 In August, 1786, in his villa of Sans Souci near Pots- dam, Frederick the Great, familiarly known to his people then and now as der alte Fritz, closed his eyes upon this world. It was a Germany still hopelessly divided in political matters which at the news of his death turned its mental vision to the place where the dead king and warrior lay in state, but it was certainly not the Germany of Frederick's youth, afflicted with chronic dry rot in every department of human activity. The breath of an authentic spring was abroad and fresh forces were shaping a national life which Fred- erick in his blindness did not appreciate, but which none the less owed much of its inspiration to the magic of his name. No less an authority than Goethe has left incontrovertible evidence on this head. In his famous autobiography, Dichtung und Wahrheit, the poet says that he and the youth of his day were first touched with national pride by the thought that they were Frederick's countrymen, and that after many gener- ations a German had again proved himself a construc- tive political force and writ his name across the sky. Thus Frederick, more French than German in all the superficial aspects of his mind, was yet a quickener of German national life; purely Prussian in his politics and creator of a greater Prussia, he yet prepared the way for a new Germany. Ill Napoleon Bonaparte: Prussia's Overthrow and Reconstruction Lecture NAPOLEON BONAPARTE : PRUSSIAS OVERTHROW AND RECONSTRUCTION TN my previous lecture I tried to make clear that •^ Frederick the Great was the dominating figure in the eighteenth century history of Prussia. His sig- nificance lay in his enlarging his territory and revenue, in his administering his kingdom with alert intelli- gence thereby increasing its prosperity and preparing it for an industrial future, and in his successfully chal- lenging the ascendancy of Austria in Germany. From Frederick's time, the great issue in Germany was the rivalry between Austria and Prussia, between Hapsburg and Hohenzollern, an issue in which the two opponents were so evenly matched that it was not settled for one hundred years. My task today is to follow the history of Prussia during the period of the French Revolution, and in order to understand what befell it is necessary, first, to turn our attention to France. The famous rising of 1789 is often regarded as a volcanic and ruinous upheaval. We arrive much nearer the truth by look- ing upon it as the logical consequence of the sound and steady development of the French people. The seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries had brought about a vast economic and social change in France which [67] 68 The Making of Modern Germany reduces itself, on analysis, to the rise of the middle class, or bourgeoisie, through commerce and industry. The bourgeoisie, like every advancing group since the beginning of time, desired to get control of its own destiny, and became more keenly set on its program in measure as it realized the waxing senility of the French state. Many generations before, at the close of the Middle Ages, this state had taken the form of an autocracy, reaching the height of its organization as well as of its power under Louis XIV (1643-1715). The eigh- teenth century, dominated by the name of Louis XV inaugurated a sharp decline. The monarchy forgot its national mission, occupied itself with sumptuous dis- play and inane pleasures, and lost the moral energy necessary to deal with the abuses that multiplied to an alarming degree in every department of the state. The administration became hopelessly corrupt, the finances developed a chronic deficit which no increase of tax- oppression was able to cure, and in the long wars with England the government was ousted from one vantage-point after another until the nation felt itself deprived of its outlook into the future and intolerably humiliated. Meanwhile the two feudal classes, the clergy and nobility, though obliged to yield their political power to the monarch, had retained so many privileges, both real and honorific, as to enable them to occupy a wholly exceptional position in the state. They enjoyed a complete exemption from some and a partial exemption from other taxes, and all the exalted posts in the diplo- Prussia's Overthrow and Reconstruction 69 matic service as well as the officer positions in the army and navy were exclusively reserved for the born aristo- crats. In the eyes of the middle class, occupied with business enterprises at home and abroad and becoming daily richer and more self-confident, the situation was fast assuming an intolerable aspect. The leading intellectual representatives of the bourgeoisie, men like Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and D'Alembert, clam- ored for a change of system, and when the monarchy, openly controlled by the two privileged groups, proved unable to effect a reform, an outbreak became inevitable. Such is the meaning of the year 1789. An effete social and political system was overthrown by the rising middle class, which felt strong enough to take the direc- tion of affairs into its own hands. But it had just begun to labor at the reorganization of the government when it found itself displaced in its turn by the demo- cratic masses, shaken out of their age-long sleep by the fierce agitation of the period. Into the struggle that followed between bourgeoisie and masses it is not my business to go further than to recall to your minds that the masses, or at least their most energetic group, gaining a victory, guillotined the king and estab- lished a republic. Being solely concerned with the effect of the Revo- lution beyond the limits of France, I now beg you to switch your attention and note that from the first day all the neighboring monarchies looked upon the French convulsion with alarm. Sporadic friction over diplo- matic issues, both real and unreal, produced sparks which, refusing to be extinguished, started an inevitable 70 The Making of Modern Germany conflagration. In the year 1792 war began between France and Austria and, spreading, gradually involved all Europe. The French republic, stirred to heroic efforts by the risks it ran, equipped armies on an un- heard-of scale and was able not only to defend its soil against invasion but presently to invade the territory of its enemies. The republican victories were sweeping and unparalleled but had an ominous aftermath : they brought the military leaders to the front, chief among them Napoleon Bonaparte. Endowed with a remarkable intelligence directed solely by personal ambition, Bonaparte saw his oppor- tunity and, supported by a devoted army, in the year 1799 overthrew the republic and seized the power. How, completely abandoning the original aims of the Revolution, he gradually took up the grandiose but futile dream of conquering Europe is a palpitating story but does not concern us here. Our concern is to learn how he, and the French Revolution before him, affected the kingdom of Prussia. The Prussia of Frederick the Great bore a certain outward resemblance to the France of Louis xv. Both were autocratic monarchies, and both the French and Prussian societies showed certain familiar feudal ear- marks, above all, a powerful landed gentry endowed with special privileges. There the resemblance ended; for, whereas in France the monarchy was old and dis- credited, and the society, though feudal in law and outward form, had been undermined through the rise of the bourgeoisie, in Prussia, on the contrary, the monarchy was young and authoritative, and the society Prussia's Overthrow and Reconstruction 71 was feudal in fact as well as law, because a middle class was as yet more of a hope than a reality. Thus while advancing France was in utter contradic- tion with its inherited laws and institutions, backward Prussia was still in more or less complete harmony with itself. The consequence was that the Revolution, an event of the utmost logic, in fact a necessity, in France, could not even be understood in Prussia, and gave rise to the gravest fears. And when, with astonishing rapidity, the Revolution became aggressive, pouring like molten lava over the French boundaries, Prussia, identified with the old regime, naturally and spontan- eously ranged herself on the side of France's enemies. The sovereign who followed Frederick the Great, his nephew, Frederick William II, was a dissipated man of a soft and unstable character. Quick to con- duct his country into the war, he was no sooner in than he regretted his decision. He lamented the loss of blood and treasure on the Rhine for no tangible terri- torial profit, and, though all the monarchs of Europe had come together to defend as from ravening wolves what they proclaimed to be their holy cause, he pres- ently deserted their union and signed a separate peace at Basel (1795). By its terms Prussia became a spec- tator in the great struggle between the old and the new order of things, and from now on for eleven years, in spite of luring offers from both sides, per- sisted in her neutral attitude. The French armies marched from victory to victory, the French state passed through a long succession of domestic crises, Napoleon's star began to rise and shed its luster over 72 The Making of Modern Germany Europe, but still the Prussian monarch declared that the struggle, which raged all around his borders and caused the Prussian state to rock on its foundations, was none of his. Such a neutrality, in plain contradiction with the facts, could be accounted for only on the ground of political stupidity and moral cowardice. Sooner or later the hour would strike when it could not be main- tained and then Prussia would be sucked into the vortex against her will and without that resolute conviction which is the only certain earnest of victory. There is no more despicable chapter of Prussian history than the official neutrality observed for eleven years in the face of an unexampled catastrophe of the European world. It was the conclusive evidence that, in spite of its many successes under Frederick, the Prussian mon- archy was hollow at the core and ripe for overthrow. Meanwhile, Napoleon Bonaparte had begun his spec- tacular career of victory. Having assumed the imperial crown in 1804 amidst splendid medieval ceremonies, and having won a dominating position beyond the boundaries of France in the Netherlands, Italy, and South Germany, he administered, in the Austerlitz campaign of the autumn of 1805, a third and superla- tive beating to his most consistent continental enemy, Austria. There was now no reason why he should any longer hesitate to complete his control of central Europe by forcing neutral Prussia, lulled by a false and irra- tional security, into his political system. Of course the timid Prussian king was profoundly hurt by the aggressive attitude of his hitherto friendly western Prussia's Overthrow and Reconstruction 73 neighbor. Big, sodden, apoplectic Frederick William II, who had inaugurated the neutrality policy, was now no longer on the throne. He had been succeeded in 1797 by his son, Frederick William ill, who, though hon- orable and virtuous by all the standards of private life, was in the conduct of public affairs as slack and irresolute as his unlamented father. When, summoning the last remnant of his self-respect, he resisted the will of his tormentor, the lightning flashed and the storm broke. The war of 1806 between Napoleon and Prussia is one of the great Corsican's most brilliant achievements. He gathered his forces with even more than his usual swiftness and practically with one master blow deliv- ered at Jena, in the forests of Thuringia, shattered the Prussian army. Thereupon the whole Prussian state fell like a house of cards. The wretched king made his escape into East Prussia and there, supported by Czar Alexander of Russia, with whom he had entered into a belated alliance, continued the struggle a little longer. In July, 1807, in the extreme eastern corner of the state, at Tilsit, Napoleon and Alexander made peace, the beaten Frederick William humbly accepting the terms that were arranged for him by the two emperors. By the treaty of Tilsit, Prussia lost half of her terri- tory; besides, she had to agree to support a French army of occupation and pay an indemnity, the amount of which was purposely left undetermined in order to keep a sword suspended over the anxious government. In the eyes of contemporaries Prussia 74 The Making of Modern Germany was stricken from the list of the great powers without any likelihood of ever recovering from her terrible abasement. The chapter that follows is the proudest in Prussian history, for it tells the story of a deliberate and pain- ful reconstruction upon a sounder foundation than the one that had crumbled so miserably. In the hour of need the best manhood of Prussia gathered around the throne and set an example of devoted self-sacrifice for the state that has few parallels. And yet without meanly stinting our praise let us avoid misconceptions. We may read in many books that Prussia, following her collapse, went through a radical transformation, achieving by a succession of royal decrees all the ben- efits of the French Revolution. That is a manifest exaggeration as a moment's reflection will show. The French Revolution was the proclamation orb'i et urbi of the coming of age of the French bourgeoisie, and since Prussia had only an embryo bourgeoisie, created by the economic policy of Frederick the Great, it stands to reason that the country could not possibly have been reorganized after the French pattern. Prussia after Jena was, like Prussia before Jena, an essentially agricultural state of the feudal type, and any reconstruction plans which left that fact out of account would have been foredoomed to failure. Therefore the actual reconstruction proceeded, as we may say, historically, and with wise moderation left the absolute monarchy unimpaired with its two tradi- tional pillars of a trained civil service and a standing army. But something, both new and vital, was joined Prussia's Overthrow and Reconstruction 75 to the old by means of reforms, the main purpose of which was to arouse the latent manhood of those classes of the population hitherto neglected and submerged. These were the peasant-serfs who worked the estates of the nobles, and the town-dwellers engaged in trade and industry. To raise their personal, legal status, thereby increasing their self-esteem, to give them political power in order that they might learn to look upon the affairs of the state as their own — such was the end of the new legislation which, while it aimed at a social renewal, certainly did not in the spirit of doctrinaire fanaticism attempt the impossible task of making Prussia over into a kind of German France. Those were terrible and solemn days when, after the peace of Tilsit, King Frederick William called his optimati about him to take counsel concerning the sav- ing of the remnants of the state from final ruin. He himself, stiff, upright, without vision or originality, counted for nothing in the crisis. Fortunately his wife, the spirited Queen Louise, covered his insignifi- cance with her feminine grace and sounded the note of heroism for which the people, seated in the darkness of despair, were listening. During the negotiations at Tilsit the queen's simple courage had prompted her to seek out Napoleon in order to bend her knee before him and ask for better terms. True, the victor remained adamant, but her petitioner's role, sustained with royal dignity, carried her at a bound into the hearts of her people. Ponder- ing the Prussian catastrophe, her unflinching honesty brought her face to face with the truth touching her hus- 76 The Making of Modern Germany band's reign : " We have fallen asleep on the laurels of Frederick the Great, the creator of a new era," she wrote to a friend. " Not progressing with that era we have been left behind." There exists a well-known portrait of Queen Louise coming down a staircase with youthful and erect grace, a jeweled star shining at her brow. That is the guise in which she appeared to her people in their hour of need, spreading just that glamour of leadership with- out which monarchy is but an intolerable incumbrance. Her moral courage thrown at the decisive moment into the political balance inclined the scales in favor of a brave, forward-looking policy, but the actual meas- ures now adopted came, not from her, but from a group of trained administrators and ardent reformers, Stein, Hardenberg, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Humboldt, and others, men who were one and all exceptionally endowed by nature, but the greatest of whom was unquestionably Stein. Baron Stein, or, as his correct title is, Freiherr vom Stein, was not a native Prussian. He was born in Nassau, the homeland of that famous line of princes who fill so shining a page in Dutch history. The baron belonged to an ancient house of imperial knights (Reichsritter) and had, as a young man, come to Prus- sia in search of a career. Possessed of great ability, he had risen fast in the administrative service but was of too austere and independent a temper to become popular at court, None the less, on the morrow of Til- sit, the advisers of the king were unanimous that the only man to bring order out of chaos was the head- QUEEN LOUISE Prussia's Overthrow and Reconstruction 77 strong administrator. He accepted the grave responsi- bility, and by the simple weight of his personality soon exercised an effective dictatorship. Long before the disaster of Jena, Stein had arrived at the conclusion that the Prussian absolutism was out of date and would have to be remodeled. But — and this was all important — the new vigor to be injected into its lifeless bones was to be drawn not so much from the example of revolutionary France as from that of commercial and individualist England. Stein's central concept, focus of all his political thought, was that the best asset of a state is the energy of its citizens, and that to liberate and increase that energy is the chief end of government. Stein turned first to the peasants. In a decree issued October, 1807, he put an end for all time to serfdom in Prussia and declared the workers of the soil free men. But what was to be their future relation to the land? Stein's idea undoubtedly was to establish them as independent owners. However, the property rights in dispute between them and their masters could not be adjusted over night, and before a settlement was reached Stein had left office. The result was that the peasants, receiving an insuf- ficient endowment of land, neither then nor afterwards succeeded to the possession of the bulk of the Prussian soil. Thus, though the liberation of the serfs rang the knell of feudalism in its legal aspect, it did not occasion a far-reaching social revolution. To this day the Prussian countryside is, in the main, an affair of large estates ; the landlords, or Junkers, continue to be 78 The Making of Modern Germany a very important social and economic element, while the agricultural laborers are a free and wage-earning class but not, in overwhelming numbers at least, independent proprietors. From the peasants Stein turned his attention to the burghers. To arouse them from the political apathy with which they were afflicted seemed even more import- ant than to liberate the serfs, because the state would be more immediately benefited by the restored faith and vigorous cooperation of the middle class. Accord- ingly, after careful study, he issued the Stddteordnung (November, 1808), devised to put the towns on a self-governing basis. Frederick the Great in his day had busily tried to animate the cities with industrial life, but neither he nor his ancestors before him had had the wisdom to observe that a competent industry could spring only from strong, individual initiative. Thus he had defeated his own ends, for though spur- ring his burghers to greater economic production, he had continued to rule their cities bureaucratically by royal commissioners. Stein, drawing breath in the era of English industrial expansion, saw that an enterprising, self-respecting business class implied political training and responsi- bility, and for this reason he resolved to start the urban communities on a career of self-government. In the back of his head he had the further idea of preparing the people in the elective municipal councils for the still larger work of ruling the state. In short, a con- stitutional monarchy was his ultimate hope, but before he could effect such a thorough-going change, the scene Prussia's Overthrow and Reconstruction 79 shifted and the curtain descended upon his ministry with tragic abruptness. The story, since it made him a martyr to the German cause, deserves to be recounted. While laboring to revive the state and the people, Stein never lost from view the immediate, practical end of liberating Prussia from the Napoleonic yoke. He planned a popular revolt to embrace all Germany, but, owing to his outspoken character, proved an impossible conspirator. One of Napoleon's secret agents in Germany succeeded in getting possession of a private letter of Stein's. It exhibited the writer in so anti-French a light that further continuance in office was out of the question, unless Prussia was ready to go to war with Napoleon at once. That was by no means the case, and therefore in November, 1 808, after not much more than a year's service, Stein left office, a victim of his headlong patriotism. Napoleon, made aware, as by a flash in the dark, of the mettle of his enemy, resolved to be rid of him forever. In a decree issued from Paris he confiscated Stein's ancestral estates in Nassau and declared the rebuilder of Prussia an outlaw. Only by a hurried flight from Germany did the hunted statesman save his life. However, the work inaugurated by Stein did not cease with his fall. His successor, Hardenberg, in spite of his ideas having a far more bureaucratic tinge than those of Stein, upheld the policy of reform; and min- isters like Scharnhorst, head of the military commis- sion, and Wilhelm von Humboldt, charged with public education, made their names illustrious with memorable achievements. Scharnhorst's work more particularly 80 The Making of Modern Germany supplemented Stein's, for he popularized and national- ized the Prussian army. He did this by throwing open the officer positions to all citizens; by abolishing foreign enlistments; by drafting the burghers into the ranks; and by proclaiming, in theory at least, the right of the Prussian state to the military service of every citizen. Some years later, in 1814, the principle of universal, obligatory service was definitely incorporated in a royal statute, and in the course of the last one hundred years has impressed the world with being the most charac- teristic single feature of the Prussian state. However, Scharnhorst himself, in the era of reconstruction, had to be content with less than the ideal he set up, for, making against the full realization of his military plans was first, the exhausted state of the national finances, and second, an express provision in the treaty with Napoleon by which the Prussian army was limited to 42,000 men. The latter restriction, it is true, a clever device in a measure overcame. By replacing one group of young men after a short term of service with another group, Scharnhorst managed, without particularly arousing Napoleon's suspicions, to give military train- ing to a not inconsiderable section of the nation and thus to be ready, when the hour struck, with a large and effective fighting force. To renovated state and army the renovated educa- tional life of Prussia presents a worthy parallel, though at first it made its effects felt only at the summit of the system, in the university realm. In the year 1810 Wilhelm von Humboldt — brother of the great natur- Prussia's Overthrow and Reconstruction 81 alist, Alexander — acting as minister of public instruc- tion founded the university of Berlin. The new time called for new intellectual agents, and the universities older than Berlin, dedicated to theological creeds and moving in the settled ruts of scholasticism, proved unsuitable media of the fresh thought abroad in the land. The university of Berlin, it was expressly declared in the articles of incorporation, was to serve no creed and to be intent only on truth and science. Lehrfrei- heit und Lernfreiheit — the right of teachers to teach and students to learn whatever love of truth urged — now for the first time established themselves within academic walls in Germany and, for that matter, in the European world. What that meant it is difficult for us to appreciate who live in a day when Lehrfreiheit und Lernfreiheit have won universal recognition; but if it is recalled that a hundred years ago a narrow and rancorous the- ology predominated everywhere, and that the natural sciences as well as the other studies of the modern curriculum enjoyed a very uncertain academic standing, we will begin to realize that the founding of a uni- versity under the solemn invocation of mental freedom meant the advent of a new educational era. The Prussia which reshaped itself along the lines here sketched, inevitably rose again from the dust to which it had been leveled at Jena. Life seems to accord this reward of renewal to individuals and nations who refuse to accept the verdict of defeat. But the renewal, I must repeat, did not involve a wholesale rejection of the Prussian tradition. On the contrary, the essen- 82 The Making of Modern Germany tial elements of that tradition — the strong monarchy, the trained civil service, the standing army — were retained; only they were nationalized and brought into touch with the people, besides being supplemented by a comprehensive legislation which had the tendency to awaken the citizen body to a consciousness of its responsibilities. This Prussia, smarting with the humil- iations imposed at Tilsit, was not likely to remain an indifferent spectator, if ever by a turn of fortune the throne of Napoleon began to rock. The more difficult the self-restraint imposed by political wisdom, the more determined would be the leap at the foe when the favorable moment came. That moment came when in 1812 Napoleon made the fatal mistake of trying to conquer Russia. In spite of apparent successes culminating in a triumphant entrance into Moscow, the French campaign ended in as complete a disaster as that of Xerxes when he mustered his Asiatic host for the invasion and conquest of Greece. By battles, disease, and the bitter Russian cold Napoleon's whole fighting force, the effective prop of his throne, was as good as wiped out. When the whispered news spread through Prussia that the French Caesar had been obliged to hurry across Germany in the dead of winter, more like a fugitive than a sover- eign, a movement went through the people that was like the rustle in the forest leaves before the coming of the storm. The king, true to the last to the unheroic mold in which nature had cast him, was for discreetly waiting on Napoleon's next move. There was now no fine-tempered Queen Louise to fix his resolution, for Prussia's Overthrow and Reconstruction 83 death had called away the helpmate while the political darkness was still unbroken. But the awakened nation, remembering its proud lady, was alert and inexorable. Responding to the throbbing heart of the people, a Prussian corps under General Yorck took matters into its own hands and, on its own initiative, practically declared war on France. Therewith the crisis was precipitated, but though the indignant king threatened to try Yorck for treason, the people unanimously applauded the general's act. Under a mild form of duress Frederick William was hurried by a patriot group from Berlin to Breslau in Silesia, which had become the center of the movement of revolt. There, barely given time to strengthen his cause by the conclusion of an alliance with Russia, he was swept into a declaration of war against Napoleon (March, 1813), which to refuse would have been to abdicate the throne. The struggle that followed is known in Prussian his- tory as the War of Liberation, for it was fought to free the nation from the yoke of Napoleon. It was no sooner under way than the effects of the new spirit and organization became everywhere visible and nowhere more conspicuously than in the army. The army could indeed be only very slowly equipped, owing to the absence of funds, but, thanks to Scharnhorst, it boasted a solid stock of men possessed of the rudiments of military training. The chief command was given to Bliicher, a man old in years but young in spirit and admirably suited to keep the enthusiasm of troops and nation at the boiling-point. In addition to the regu- 84 The Making of Modern Germany lars, there were such crowds of volunteers that finally the whole arm-bearing population was gathered into camp. But not alone from Prussia, from all parts of Germany men rushed to help the cause. To mention only one such volunteer because of the fame he reaped — the Saxon, Koerner, joined a troop of roughriders, called Jaeger, and in a number of splendid war songs crystallized the exaltation of the age. The young poet fell in battle at the age of twenty-two, dying a death which the ancient Greeks would have acclaimed as beautiful. As final evidence of the spirit of sacrifice abroad let a single statistical statement suffice. Prus- sia, a conquered country of contracted area and less than five million inhabitants, mobilized almost three hundred thousand soldiers, a larger number than was furnished for the campaign of 1813 by either Russia or Austria. In spite of the disaster of 1812, the Emperor Napo- leon had an abundance of fight left in him. With the skill for organization that was an essential feature of his military genius, he equipped a new army and with the advent of spring hurried into Germany to seek out the enemy. Prussians and Russians together made a determined effort to hold the line of the Elbe. Twice' defeated in the month of May, they had slowly to fall back. But to Napoleon's own surprise the enemy yielded few prisoners and retired from the field in perfect order. " The rascals have learnt something! " he was heard to mutter angrily in the course of his futile pursuit, and troubled by the many perplexities of the situation, he fell in with the offer of an armistice, Prussia's Overthrow and Reconstruction 85 the purpose of which was to discuss possible terms of peace. That act was his undoing, at least such was his own view repeatedly expressed in after years. For the armistice lasted over two months, from June to August, with the result that Russia and Prussia gained a much needed respite to complete their equip- ment, while Austria, hitherto neutral, slowly reached the conviction that her hour of revenge had come and joined the allies. At the same time Great Britain, already at war with Napoleon — she had been unin- terruptedly at war with him since 1803 — signed an agreement with his other enemies. There was thus constituted in the summer of 1813 a formidable Quad- ruple Alliance pledged to dedicate its total strength to the overthrow of Europe's conqueror. When the truce ended without the conclusion of a peace, the campaign of 1813 reopened. And now be- hold, the scene had shifted everywhere to Napo- leon's disadvantage. He was outnumbered and — unheard-of event ! — put on the defensive. He held the plain of Saxony, a central position, with his usual skill and obstinacy, but slowly his many and ubiquitous enemies drove in his outposts until the hero of a hun- dred battles, the modern god of war, was brought to bay near the great city of Leipzig. There followed a supreme struggle, a battle lasting three days and cul- minating on October 18 in one of the famous routs of history. Napoleon himself with a small body of troops managed to slip through the iron ring which the allies were drawing about him and gained the Rhine in safety, but central Europe was definitely lost to him and it was 86 The Making of Modern Germany very doubtful whether the resources still in hand would suffice to maintain his hold on France. Prussia was in- toxicated with joy. Not only had the nation gloriously redeemed itself, but the Prussian army under the ener- getic Bliicher, the Marschall Vorwaerts of his idolizing troopers, had been unquestionably the decisive factor in the lion hunt that closed at Leipzig. Irresistibly the victors poured after Napoleon until they reached the banks of the Rhine. There they paused until, slowly becoming aware that nothing was done as long as Napoleon himself was still at large, they crossed the river prepared to track him to his lair. His resistance in the famous winter campaign of 1813-14 was magnificent. But he was now a beaten man, fighting against hope and fatally outnumbered. When on the last day of March the allies captured the city of Paris, he accepted the verdict of arms, and on April 7, at his castle of Fontainebleau, drew up his abdication. Proclaimed the prisoner of Europe, he was sent into honorable exile to the island of Elba, off the coast of Tuscany. In the light of Napoleon's subsequent conduct the distinguished treatment meted out to him by the victors was more than he deserved. Still it may be urged in his defense that it was pure folly to expect so venture- some a spirit to be content with a play-kingdom such as Elba, while France, his willing prize, lay a few hours' journey across the blue Mediterranean. Abiding in Elba through the winter months, as soon as the spring of 1815 stirred the smouldering fires in his blood, he struck suddenly and secretly for the shore Prussia's Overthrow and Reconstruction 87 of Provence. His former soldiers, to whom his word was law, once more rallied about him, and, although the level-headed shopkeepers and merchants grumbled and shook their heads, he was swept on to Paris by a flood of popular sentiment and triumphantly established on the restored imperial throne. The restored Napoleonic empire was not destined to last long. Les Cent Jours — the Hundred Days — the French call the brief period of Bonaparte's second dream of power. As soon as the news of his flight from Elba reached the diplomats of the Quadruple Alliance, they renewed their mutual pledges and, refus- ing to treat with their escaped prisoner in any form or manner, peremptorily declared him an outlaw. Then they let slip the dogs of war. Since with relatively unimpaired forces he had failed to resist the four powers in 1813, it was as good as certain that he would not prevail now. In point of fact a three days' campaign, conducted by only a fraction of the allies' forces, sufficed to crush him. Of course, being Napoleon, he did not go down without a struggle. Characteristically he himself forced the fighting by suddenly swooping down on Bliicher's Prussians. These, with a part of the British army, had wintered not far from the French frontier, in Belgium. At Ligny, on June 16, by quick maneuvering Napoleon gave Bliicher a sound beating. Then he turned against the British under Wellington, and two days later, on June 18, fought the battle of Water- loo. Everybody knows how the emperor, after the skies cleared at noon, recklessly sent his legions to dis- 88 The Making of Modern Germany lodge the enemy, how the British for hours stubbornly held their ground, and how they were rewarded for their gallantry when, late in the afternoon, the Prus- sians came upon the scene. Bliicher, beaten two days before, had been eliminated, so Napoleon calculated from the situation. But to his misfortune the emperor underestimated the spirit of the marshal and his stead- fast troops. The fiery old man had pledged his word to Wellington to join him upon need, and on June 18, in spite of the heavy, rain-sodden roads, intrepidly worked his way toward Napoleon's right flank. The emperor caught, to his complete surprise, be- tween two fires was forced to witness the shattering of his army, and at nightfall made his escape from a carnage and rout that were worse than Leipzig. With his soldiers dead or captured he was deprived of his one sure following, and in the face of the cold aver- sion of the rest of France, abdicated a second time. Needless to say the allies did not repeat their Elban experiment. They sent him as far away from Europe as possible to the rocky mid-Atlantic island of St. Helena, where after a confinement, unhappily attended by both humiliation and physical suffering, he died six years after Waterloo. My hurried narrative can not have failed to show that the Prussian army figured prominently in both the first and second overthrow of Napoleon Bonaparte. With such achievements to its credit the new Prussia had conclusively proved that it was not the mean affair which had gone down to defeat at Jena some years before, and that it would have to be readmitted to Prussia's Overthrow and Reconstruction 89 the councils of Europe. With the downfall of Napoleon effected, the great concern was the re-drawing of the European boundaries, and naturally the victors of the Quadruple Alliance took it in hand as their particular prerogative. They discussed the question while the fighting was still going on, but finally agreed to adjourn the debate to a meeting called in the Austrian capital in the winter of 1814-15. The famous Congress of Vienna created the public law with which Europe entered upon the nineteenth century, and of course the four allies, who controlled the situation, saw to it that their reward was duly entered on the books. At the Congress of Vienna, Prussia, the only country with which we are concerned, was restored to the terri- torial condition she boasted before the war of 1806. That does not mean that she received back the exact provinces held before Jena, but merely that in area and population she was restored to her ante-bellum power. To illustrate the procedure adopted: By giving up the territory acquired in the three partitions of Poland the government got in exchange certain Ger- man territory in Saxony and on the Rhine. The sur- rendered Polish provinces were snapped up by Russia which therewith was enabled to boast that most of the old kingdom of Poland was now in its power.* If, map in hand, you will compare the boundaries of the restored Prussia of 1815 with the boundaries of 1806, it will immediately appear that the new Prussia was territorially more compact and, from the point of view * On the partitions of Poland and Prussia's share therein see Appen- dix F. 90 The Making of Modern Germany of race, more solidly German. In fact, except for a remaining belt of Poles along the eastern frontier, the state boasted only German citizens. Since Austria, after its restoration at Vienna, re- mained the same state of many peoples — Germans, Slavs, Magyars, Italians — which it had become through its age-long growth down the valley of the Danube, Prussia from now on enjoyed an indubitable advantage over Austria in the struggle for German leadership. Being German, she was, without effort and through no special merit, essentially harmonious with the whole German stock; whereas Austria, largely identified with non-German interests, was obliged by circumstances to pursue ends which were often not in accord with those of German nationalism and some- times diametrically opposed to them. The best illustration of the change in the relative importance of the two rivals with regard to the rest of Germany is afforded by the new Rhenish territories which, as I have just said, came to Prussia in exchange for Polish lands. Let us for a moment consider some of the implications of the solid establishment of Prussia on the Rhine. At first glance the advantage of the Rhenish acquisition was open to question, because the new territory was not contiguous with the bulk of the monarchy east of the Elbe; besides, it presented a diffi- cult problem of defense in the event of a renewal of French aggression. Now in building up a special Prussian territorial in- terest in western Germany the Congress of Vienna con- sciously and deliberately brought Prussia and France Prussia's Overthrow and Reconstruction 91 into opposition. We must remember that the perhaps dominant idea of the Viennese diplomats was so to draw the boundaries of Europe that defeated France would pause and reflect before resuming her ambitious assaults on central Europe. Their thought ran much as fol- lows: Eighteenth-century Prussia, provided with neg- ligible interests on the Rhine, had proved a weak dam, in fact no dam at all, against the French floods; en- dowed at Vienna with a solid block of territory on both banks of the river, would she not prove a better bulwark in the future ? Acting on this hope, the Congress, not without a certain malice, loaded a dangerous responsi- bility on Prussian shoulders. The Berlin government, it is interesting to note, took over the Rhine lands with reluctance, but having once accepted them, Prussia be- came automatically the protector of Germany against its Gallic neighbor, and, for better and for worse, as- sumed the honorable task of watch and ward on the most national of German streams, the Rhine. But that same protecting role Austria had exercised in the past centuries by reason of her ownership of the Breisgau, on the upper Rhine opposite Alsace, and of the Austrian Netherlands, familiar to us under the name of Belgium. And now what happened? In 1815 the House of Hapsburg, prompted by the desire to with- draw from contact with France and to concentrate its attention nearer home, surrendered all these western outposts in return for a foothold in Italy. It was not an unreasonable move in itself, but it snapped most of the remaining bonds between Austria and Germany. Thus at the Congress of Vienna, with Austria's own 92 The Making of Modern Germany consent, Prussia was put in the way of proving by serv- ice to the nation that the leadership of Germany be- longed henceforth of right to her. The Prussian monarchy of 1815, we may note again in a final attempt to measure the transformation of the Napoleonic period, was equal to the new oppor- tunities that came with the new time. I have repeatedly warned against the extravagant view that reconstructed Prussia deserted her traditional founda- tions. The strong monarchy kept control, and with it much of the patriarchal theory which I attempted to define in a previous lecture continued to obtain. None the less, a transformation of weight and moment was effected, inasmuch as Stein and Scharnhorst released the slumbering forces of the nation and wed the people to the state. Henceforth the view, dangerously prev- alent before Jena, that the state was an end in itself and therefore justified in setting tasks to its subjects with lordly unconcern for their counsels and wishes, lost all but a few hidebound supporters. In the new century individual Prussians, practicing local self-government, serving shoulder to shoulder in the army, made confident by a body of fundamental civil rights, were sure to assert themselves as they never had before. " Every citizen is in duty bound to defend his fatherland," ran the opening sentence of the famous conscription law of 1814, crowning Scharnhorst's re- construction of the army. That sentence and the com- pulsory military service which it imposed put a solemn responsibility on every citizen, high and low, that showed itself in an increased dignity of bearing. It showed Prussia's Overthrow and Reconstruction 93 itself no less in an ethical enthusiasm voiced by scores of contemporaries — administrators, poets, and teach- ers — but most impressively sounded by such philos- ophers as Kant, the Prussian by birth, and Fichte, the Prussian by adoption. Most probably Kant and Fichte, in urging their views of the duty of the citizen, imagined they were stating a general position valid for any place and for all time; but as a matter of fact, limited, like the rest of us, by their personal experience, they merely postu- lated the moral conditions which, by saving Prussia, the country of their attachment, from its besetting perils, appeared to them to guarantee its permanence. Kant and Fichte taught the stirring doctrine of the individual will which, free in itself, discovers its true end in voluntary subjection to the state. Voluntary subjection was the gist of the matter, since it was only by the free offer of his hand and brain that the indi- vidual affirmed his moral integrity. In Kant the doc- trine took the form of the socalled categorical impera- tive, the " thou must " of the still, small voice; in Fichte it assumed the character of a romantic patriotism. In any case, with an appeal mixed of reason and emo- tion, the great ethical masters of the age incukated the solemn assumption by the citizen of a duty to the state and thus stamped or helped stamp an austerity on the Prussian spirit which has brought to the mind of many an observer the " dourness " of the Scots under the regime of Presbyterianism. Indeed it is far from fantastic to suggest that, on its ethical side, Kan- tianism was a sort of revived Calvinism. 94 The Making of Modern Germany Summarizing this attempt to characterize the revived Prussian state, I would linger on the moral unity and force which the Kantian ideal gave. True, the spread of that ideal was not so much due to Kant, an abstruse and relatively unknown pedagogue of Konigsberg, as to the long working of historical causes which Kant formulated in terms of a personal and social ethics. For me at least, when I try to account for the Spartan rigor of the Prussian state coupled with the voluntary and passionate devotion to it of its subjects, I find»myself going over in my mind the peculiar experi- ence of the Prussian people, more particularly the dan- gers attending the birth of Prussia during the agony of the Thirty Years' War, and the crushing catastrophe precipitated by the genius of Napoleon Bonaparte. If it did not lead me too far afield, it would be inter- esting, in conclusion, to compare this Prussian state of 1815, in development and essence, with that contem- porary European state to which it presented the sharp- est contrast — England. As even a hurried comparison sheds a measure of light, I beg leave to call attention to a few outstanding facts of the English situation. The England of the early nineteenth century pos- sessed a parliamentary form of government, which means that the political control had passed into the hands of certain social groups represented in parlia- ment. These were the land-holding aristocracy and the well-to-do middle class made up of the merchants and bankers. These groups, after a long struggle, had won a victory over the king and had reduced him to impotence. STEIN SCHARNHORST KANT* GOETHE 1 Courteiy of Ottn Court Pub. Lv. Prussia's Overthrow and Reconstruction 95 The act that registered their final triumph was passed in 1689 and is known as the Bill of Rights. Enamored of free action in a world that was just being opened by colonial enterprise, the victors (whom, for short, I shall call the upper classes), proclaimed their own political and economic liberty, and eagerly accumulated guarantees against the possibility of being interfered with by the central executive. A weak, relatively inac- tive state controlled by the upper classes; freedom, glorious freedom, for the individual members of the ruling orders to shape their destiny as they pleased; and more or less passive masses excluded from every voice in the government, but thrown sufficient abun- dance of crumbs from the crowded table of their "betters" to preserve their attachment to the system — such were the essential features of the English social and political regime of 1815. Being what it was, the regime impressed on Great Britain an overwhelming individualist tendency, just as the concentrated system of Prussia, with its all- powerful state, created a political unity, which, in spite of inherited feudal distinctions of caste, is suggestive of collectivism. In the course of the nineteenth century, in spite of new conditions and certain important modi- fications imposed thereby on both systems, the histor- ically established tendencies of individualism and collectivism continued to prevail in Great Britain and Prussia respectively, causing them to develop as con- sistent examples of two diametrically opposed social ideals. IV Progress and Reaction: from the Congress of Vienna to the Revolution of 1848 jfourti) Lecture PROGRESS AND REACTION: FROM THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA TO THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 AT the close of the Napoleonic period, the position of Prussia in the European world was determined by two events which I beg to be permitted to bring once more to your attention. The first was the social transformation wrought by Stein and the other patriot statesmen, and the second was the improved position of the country as a German power effected by the Con- gress of Vienna. Prussia's immediate future was there- fore definitely staked out for her: it would involve an inner problem of continued reorganization, and an outer problem of her relationship to Germany. These two matters, which, owing to their constant interaction, it will not be possible or even desirable to keep steadily apart, will form the substance of our inquiry in this our fourth meeting. By way of introduction we must supply an omission in our development hitherto and bring the general German situation up to the point to which it had been carried by virtue of the great upheaval called the French Revolution. That the Revolution and Napoleon gravely affected the fortunes of Prussia we are now amply aware, but we have not paused to note what stir they made in the rest of Germany, and specifically, [99] 100 The Making of Modern Germany what changes they produced in the form of union still legally maintained under the name of the Holy Roman Empire. We saw that the Holy Roman Empire was indeed left in existence at the end of the Thirty Years' War, but that its functions were so reduced that the effective sovereignty passed from it to the component states. These were some three hundred in number, of which Austria and Prussia, as the largest, presently stepped to the front. The nameless but overwhelming majority were of course microscopic affairs, which tried to conceal their impotence behind a noisy insistence on their rights. Since the Holy Roman Empire was a political mummy conserved by peculiar circumstances, it was sure to crumble to dust at the first rude breath from the real world. This fact was so generally understood that eighteenth century humor poured a steady stream of by no means gentle ridicule over the sorry remains of a former splendor. Voltaire mockingly defined the Holy Roman Empire as a state that, in derision of its name, was neither an empire nor holy nor Roman; and Goethe has one of the students in the drinking-scene in Faust brawl out a song of scorn beginning : Das liebe Heilige Romische Reich, Wie halt's nur noch zusammen? No national sanitary commission insisting on re- moval, the Empire did somehow halt zusammen till a Day of Judgment dawned with the French Revolu- tion. Then, in the presence of this touchstone of reality, the dissolution proceeded so rapidly and spontaneously Progress and Reaction 101 that by the time Napoleon Bonaparte arrived on the scene an imperial nod sufficed to hurry it into an unnoticed grave. The event occurred in 1806. By that year Napoleon in his conquering course had reached the point at which he was resolved to lay hand on central Europe. Examining with the direct, un- clouded gaze of the born soldier the confused situation in Germany, he became filled with an impatient desire to end the hundreds of infinitesimal sovereignties of medieval origin which had managed to perpetuate their useless existence. In execution of his design he threw scores of them together, handed other scores to larger neighbors and, before he was done, had by his ruthless proceeding, intolerant of legal artifice, simplified and modernized the map of Germany. What was left of the reshaped country he reorganized under the name of the Confederation of the Rhine and ruled with the title of Protector. When on Napoleon's disappearance the Congress of Vienna, in pursuit of its policy of reconstruction, drew up a list of the German states which it was pre- pared to acknowledge, the number was found to run to thirty-eight. Compare this figure with the three hun- dred and more of a decade earlier and you arrive at a picture of Napoleon in the role of Hercules intent on cleaning up the political stables of Germany. Many a Frenchman, unable to work up any ^enthusiasm for Napoleon's diminution of the German chaos, has iron- ically suggested that the grateful fatherland raise statues to the Corsican alongside of Luther and Bismarck. And the Germans, not unmindful of Napoleon's work, might 102 The Making of Modern Germany have heeded the advice, if the reflection had not inter- posed that, invaluable as the emperor's destructive policy was, he had carried it through for his own am- bitious ends and not with the least idea of doing any- thing for the German nation. Putting discussion aside, it is indisputable that Napo- leon interred the ancient German empire, bade with a haughty gesture some hundreds of socalled potentates no longer to burden the earth with their pretensions, and brought the diplomats at Vienna face to face with a Germany immensely simplified, it is true, but still boasting the by no means inconsiderable number of thirty-eight sovereign states. One of the most engrossing issues which came up for consideration in the Congress of Vienna was the ques- tion what form of union, if any, was to be given the thirty-eight states which had survived the floods and tempests. Nobody in even that conservative assembly suggested a return to the Holy Roman Empire. If it could by any conceivable hocus-pocus have been raised from the dead, we may rest assured that reactionaries like Prince Metternich, the Austrian chancellor, would have made the attempt. But what was to be put in its place? A new patri- otism had come to life in Germany during the Napo- leonic conquest, and in the era of the Wars of Liberation it had blazed up grandly for a moment. Its upholders loudly declared that the victory won must be utilized in such a way as to secure Germany against a repetition of the recent French conquest and that the only method to effect that end was by a close, authoritative federa- Progress and Reaction 103 tion. But, after all, these patriots were a scattered group and if a census had been taken would have been found to include hardly more than the membership of the intellectual classes. Since these individuals pub- lished books, held university chairs, and wrote for the newspapers, they could make themselves heard through the land, but it remained to be proved whether or no they had a following among the people and could effect political results. Opposed to them were, on the one hand, backward, inexperienced masses attached to their local governments and as yet unfamiliar with the idea of a united Germany; and, on the other hand, the sover- eign princes who, jealous of their inherited rights, had no desire to see their power curtailed in the interest of a federal executive. Finally, of momentous importance in every debate over the reorganization of Germany, was the ancient rivalry between Austria and Prussia, which, as soon as the common enemy was overthrown, blazed up afresh. If Germany was to become one, it would have to be united, as matters stood, under a monarchical form of government, and that meant that the German imperial crown would have to be tendered to either the Austrian or the Prussian sovereign, to either a Hapsburg or a Hohenzollern. But neither was willing that the other should be so distinguished, and until a solution of this difficulty was found the German situation was abso- lutely deadlocked. Thus the sincere efforts made by the patriots at Vienna, even though Stein with his immense national prestige stood behind them, led to nothing, and it was clear to all men endowed with 104 The Making of Modern Germany political insight that the Austro-Prussian rivalry would have to be disposed of before German unification could advance an inch. Under the circumstances, the Congress of Vienna need not be criticised and excoriated, as has been often the case, for contenting itself with a subterfuge. After all, it was not within the power of the diplomats to terminate the jealousy of Austria and Prussia, nor was it their function to fan the low fire of German patriotism to a vaulting blaze. As diplomats have always done, the excellencies gathered at Vienna took matters as they found them, and brought the German states into a union, the main characteristic of which was that the sov- ereignty of the component members was left untouched. The German Federation — der dentsche Bund — as the union was called, created neither an executive head nor a central administration; it did not levy taxes or provide an army and navy; in a word, it was a union existing only on paper and not a whit less impotent than the defunct and unlamented Holy Roman Empire. Its role in the subsequent years was so shadowy and neg- ligible, that in a brief account like this we may leave the Bund entirely out of account after registering the fact that at the Congress of Vienna it was considered the only form of union of which Germany was capable. As soon as the German patriots, aglow with expec- tation, examined what the diplomats had hatched, they were overcome with disappointment. They scoffed at the mock-union foisted on their land, and declared in unequivocal terms that they would not rest until the flimsy fabrication had been blown away and a solid and Progress and Reaction 105 permanent edifice set in its place. But how that result was to be achieved in view of the Austro-Prussian and a heap of other difficulties, no patriot was able to say. With German unification in a state of suspended animation, our interest swings to the second problem with which Prussia embarked on her post-Napoleonic career, the problem of her continued inner upbuilding. I need not here rehearse the story of the Stein reforms further than to note that they had stood the test of fire in the great uprising of 1813. But one point remains to be added to. the tale. Stein himself, profound believer in the awakened energies of the people, desired to crown his labors by introducing a constitutional sys- tem of government. He was dismissed too soon to realize his idea, but in the year 1815, when he had been for some time out of office, it looked as if his plan were to be given a belated trial. In May of that year, only a few weeks before Water- loo, King Frederick William allowed himself to be per- suaded to spur the martial ardor of his subjects to the utmost by promising them a departure from the tradi- tional absolutism. " A representation of the people shall be established in Prussia," the joyful message ran, which, in view of the monarch's rooted distrust of change, must have been reluctantly wrung from him by the pressure of events. Loud and extravagant was the rejoicing of the Liberals, whose unbridled imagination saw Prussia endowed by royal command with a consti- tution and a parliamentary form of government. But the Liberals, who had fed freely on the political literature of England and France and looked upon a 106 The Making of Modern Germany Prussian evolution along English and French lines as the great desideratum, had a disappointment in store for them. To begin with, what the king had in mind with his vaguely phrased promise was something im- measurably less than their fond imaginings. Though a man without the faintest aura of geniality, Frederick William in had the not unimportant gift of common sense, and did not for a single moment plan to supply Prussia with a constitutional suit made according to the measure of his western neighbors. But even that modest degree of popular cooperation which he may have planned when he issued his statement was denied in the end. For this he laid himself open to just and bitter censure but the fault was not exclusively his. We must remember that every man is more or less the plaything of circumstance, and that Frederick Wil- liam, a very mediocre person, was not likely to resist the compelling forces of his age and immediate environ- ment. Now the overwhelming fact is that, after Water- loo had been fought and Napoleon had been chained, like another Prometheus, to his Atlantic rock, an irre- sistible reaction came over tired Europe. People had had enough of experiment and change and wanted chiefly to be let alone. The past, lying beyond the French Revolution, became to their warped vision " the good old days," and the enlightened autocracy of the eighteenth century the best form of government attain- able by erring man. The pleased monarchs were not slow to support the movement in their favor, and, together with them, the old ruling classes, the nobility and the clergy, were Progress and Reaction 107 floated back into leadership on the favoring tide of opinion. The result was a general reign of conserv- atism, the fine fleur of which showed its ungracious head in the famous Holy Alliance. This was a combination of the victors over Napoleon sworn to maintain the governments and boundaries imposed by the Congress of Vienna. It was originally made up of all the victors — even the France of the restored Bourbons being ad- mitted into the partnership — but finally, on becoming uncompromising and quixotic in its devotion to the prin- ciple of political immobility, the Holy Alliance retained the reliable support of only the three eastern powers, Russia, Austria, and Prussia. These brief references to the dominant currents of European opinion after 1815 will help explain the fate of Frederick William's promise of a popular represen- tation. In his court, among the nobility, even among many enlightened representatives of the middle class he met a blank disapproval of every form of experi- mentation suggesting kinship with the French Revolu- tion, and in the face of an opinion which chimed most happily with his own intimate thoughts, he adjourned action from day to day and year to year. Only when it was impossible to delay longer, he honored, as it were, his own draft, and in 1823 established provincial assemblies throughout the monarchy organized along feudal lines and endowed with only consultative powers. Mountains had been in labor, the ridiculous mouse was born, was the comment of the disheartened Lib- erals; and as a matter of fact the provincial assemblies could not even by the dialectical skill of the hirelings 108 The Making of Modern Germany of the court be palmed off as a redemption of the royal promise and a genuine modern representation of the people. The decree of 1823 indicated that a political reaction was triumphant in Prussia, that a modification of the absolute regime was for the moment out of the question, and that the disappointed Liberals would have to content themselves with waiting for a better day. But, in spite of reaction, Prussia did not drop into a general standstill in the period which we are consider- ing. The very opposite is more nearly the truth. After all, the monarchy, if autocratic, was the heir of an enlightened tradition, and the democratic impulse com- municated by the era of Stein was far from spent. Therefore the labors of reform continued and in more than one respect the achievements of the reactionary period after 1815 do not yield in importance to the more famous and spectacular enactments of 1807. Let us consider these achievements, beginning with the realm of education. By a series of laws the Prus- sian schools were coordinated into a comprehensive national system. This was done by means of improved provisions for high-schools (gymnasia) and the exten- sion of the Lehrfreiheit und Lernfreihelt of the new university of Berlin to the older universities of the land ; but, above all, the existing primary schools (Folks- schnlen) were multiplied until they became general and attendance at them was made obligatory. In Prussia, first among European states, the rudiments of learning were carried, at public expense and by the coercion of law, to every boy and girl in the realm, with the result Progress and Reaction 109 that by the middle of the century illiteracy had almost disappeared, and Prussia, in the matter of the educa- tion of its people, rose head and shoulders above all its neighbors. It is a curious circumstance that England and France, in political matters so much more democratic than Prus- sia, should in education, assuredly a democratic con- cern, have limped so far behind her that half a century passed before they even made an effort to do anything on approximately the same universal scale. Even today the Prussian literacy record is a just source of pride to ruler and people, and gives the state a kind of moral primacy over its rivals. No less conducive to the welfare of the people was the new economic policy. Prussia had taken over from the eighteenth century and from Frederick the Great an antiquated economic system involving an officious interference of the state authorities in every phase of production and exchange. I described it in an earlier lecture as an integral part of the prevailing patriarchal concept. By virtue of it, the government did not scru- ple arbitrarily to block off province from province and town from town. To illustrate this closing of the ave- nues of trade, let me mention that there were in force, within the Prussian boundaries of 1815, no less than sixty-seven separate tariff systems! How with such hindrances was a smooth and profitable exchange of goods to be effected between even nearby markets ? The arbitrary policy was by no means exclusively Prussian, for all the continental states followed a similar system. But recently freer ideas of trade had begun to spread. 110 The Making of Modern Germany They emanated largely from Great Britain, where Adam Smith and other students of the new science of Political Economy thundered against the system of capricious restrictions. The new ideas, based on scientific considerations, had greatly influenced the reformer, Stein, and since Stein's day had made further headway by converting many of the high officials of the Prussian state. In 1818 the favorers of economic reform celebrated a great victory. They persuaded the king to end at a stroke of the pen the old confusion and to declare Prussia a single eco- nomic area where trade could move to and fro in entire freedom. So much gained, these wide-awake administrators applied themselves to the still more ambitious task of creating a tariff union, or Zollverein, with the other German states. The boundaries of the thirty-eight sovereign territories were so much an affair of hap- hazard that they crisscrossed at innumerable points, making the collection of customs dues an absurdly expensive business, besides paralyzing all trade that involved any considerable journey. The Prussian government took up the idea, indicative of a large and modern outlook, of leveling these arti- ficial barriers and converting Germany into a single trading territory. It began by offering admission into its own system to its most immediate neighbors. The terms were fair: participation in the total tariff revenue in proportion to population. It is amusing to look back and note the wild upflare of indignation against this socalled aggressive proposal. There was nothing dearer Progress and Reaction 111 to each princeling than his traditional sovereignty, and how, he asked plaintively, could this apple of his eye be preserved if he made over his economic policy to other hands? Still, the financial advantages redound- ing from the Prussian plan were so overwhelming that one state after another grumblingly gave way. By 1 842 the great amalgamation had been substantially carried through. The rival power, Austria, was not invited to join the Zollverein, but intrigue as she might, she could not put a stop to a movement which brought untold advantages to all concerned. From now on Germany, from the Alps to the North sea, constituted a free market for all Germans. Trade responded quickly to the opportunity of profit, and capital felt encouraged to build factories and introduce the new methods of machine production. As the Prussian tariff schedule fixed a low scale of duties, not only domestic but also foreign trade was stimulated and caused German merchants, so long con- fined to a parochial outlook, to raise their eyes to for- eign parts and gradually to reacquire the lost Hanseatic spirit of enterprise. But while the economic advantages of the union were immediate and tangible, certain moral and political after-effects were not slow to appear. On the one hand, the Zollverein preached daily the patriotic les- son of strength from union, and, on the other, it gave evidence to every thinking man that the logical head of Germany was not Austria but Prussia, the state with a progressive policy, the power that did things. Under these circumstances the German national con- 112 The Making of Modern Germany sciousness gradually developed an energy which, in the long run, would have to be reckoned with. We have seen that in 1815 the handful of eager patriots who nursed the hope of German unification found them- selves balked in their plans largely through a lack of support from public opinion. The fact was, Germany had been so long politically impotent, and had fallen so far behind in the race of life, that a painstaking apprenticeship was required to enable her to compete with her neighbors on a basis of equality. Everything considered, the useless Bund concocted at Vienna was as good a union as the Germany of 1815 deserved. The country was not ripe for a closer federation and would not be ripe until a change had been operated in the con- sciousness of the average German, a change as the result of which he would feel a waxing pride in his nation and make a clamorous outcry for political reform. That the oppression of Napoleon had done some- thing toward arousing the Germans to opposition and therewith to a national consciousness we are aware. It now behooves us to consider what the German intel- lectual classes of the period both before and after Napo- leon contributed to the same end. Though primarily concerned with the advance of civilization, their work was bound to have an indirect political bearing. In speaking, in an earlier lecture, of Frederick the Great, I took occasion to note the eighteenth-century revival in Germany of literature, music, and philosophy. Poets like Goethe and Schiller, composers like Bach and Handel, critics and philosophers like Lessing and Progress and Reaction 113 Kant, are names of which any nation may be proud and show that the dismal mental stagnation caused by the Thirty Years' War was yielding to a new bloom of the spirit. And the development thus auspiciously begun went on. Madame de Stael, the famous contemporary and antagonist of Napoleon, in spite of a passionate devotion to her French homeland, conceded to the intellectual life of the Germany of her day the palm over that of every other country of Europe and pro- claimed her conviction in her book, De I' Allemagne (1810), widely, though perhaps incredulously, read by her astonished countrymen. Presently the natural sciences, somewhat neglected at first owing to the dominant metaphysical tendency, gained an honored standing in the universities. Physics, chemistry, botany, and the other branches were eagerly seized upon by fresh minds, and that good results were not wanting is sufficiently shown by such names as Alex- ander von Humboldt, the traveler, and Justus Liebig, the chemist. At the same time a new generation of writers and musicians seized the torch from their prede- cessors, and poets like Heine and Eichendorff, com- posers like Beethoven and Schubert, philosophers like Hegel and Schopenhauer, historians like Niebuhr and Ranke indicated plainly that the nineteenth century would not prove an era of decline. Even insular Great Britain now awakened to the vitality of the German message, and Thomas Carlyle, owing much of his inspi- ration to Teutonic influences, by masterly translations and essays undertook to familiarize his countrymen with the varied products of the German workshop. 114 The Making of Modern Germany Thus the brilliant work of a host of composers, authors, scientists, and scholars did much to counteract the disgrace of Germany's political impotence, and caused a justifiable pride in the German name to be- come more and more general through the country. Why, with its intellectual and artistic contribution on a level with that of any other nation, should Germany remain politically an object of derision? Increasing numbers of Germans began imperatively to demand an effective union, and toward the middle of the century the patriotic sentiment had become so powerful that some sort of action, perhaps a revolution, might be expected at any moment. However, as long as Frederick William in reigned in Prussia there were grave obstacles to change, because an old, dyed-in-the-wool conservative like the king could not be weaned from his convictions. But, in 1840, Frederick William ended his days and was succeeded by his son, Frederick William IV. The new king was a fluid and rhetorical personality, the very opposite of his taciturn, almost petrified father. Undoubtedly cultured and gifted, he enjoyed the friendship of many of the intellectual leaders of the day, but in the field of politics he was as much devoted to tradition as his father, and as little inclined to change as Metternich himself. He shared the enthusiasm for the Middle Ages so common in his time, believed the modern materialist and demo- cratic tendencies to be contrary to the Christian reli- gion, and on the whole fully justified the title of the Romanticist upon the Throne which the disappointment and contempt of the age fastened upon him. Progress and Reaction 115 By the time of Frederick William iv's accession pub- lic opinion had definitely crystallized in the double de- mand of a constitution for Prussia and union for Germany. When the new king showed no inclination to further these ends, signs of anger rapidly multiplied. In order to placate the opposition, in the year 1847 he called together at Berlin delegates from the provincial assemblies established by his father a generation before. This United Diet (Vereinigte Landtag) must always remain memorable as the first body Prussia ever had suggestive of a national representative assembly. The king intended it to exercise only consultative powers, but after the fashion of assemblies that feel the quick- ening breath of public opinion, it immediately attempted to extend its prerogative, quarreled with the sovereign, and was dismissed after some weeks with every sign of the royal disapproval. A few months later the storm burst. A revolution in Paris, which broke out in February, 1848, and ended in the overthrow of the unpopular Bourbon monarchy, encouraged the people of the continent generally to rise against their repressive governments. Even Vienna, the long acknowledged mouthpiece of conservative Europe, raised the cry for a new system and proved its change of heart by driving that almost sacred symbol of the Holy Alliance, Prince Metternich, from office. Thereupon Berlin, not to be outdone, on March 18 followed the Viennese example. After a bloody clash had taken place between citizens and soldiers, the vacil- lating and romantic Frederick William, horrified by the prospect of a civil war, resolved to come to terms with 116 The Making of Modern Germany the insurgents without more ado. By solemn proclama- tion he pledged himself to the two demands of the hour, a constitution for Prussia and union for Germany. Thus as the result of a single sharp crisis and with a minimum of bloodshed, the unpopular conservative regime seemed to have been brought to an ignominious end. Meanwhile the patriotic enthusiasm released through- out Germany had led to the calling of a national assem- bly which was to take up the question of German unity. Since the kings and princes had in half a hun- dred years made no headway with that issue, let the people try was the general sentiment, and on the strength of it an election was held, based on manhood suffrage, which in May, 1848, brought together the best men of the nation at Frankfort-on-the-Main. If scholarly equipment and earnestness of purpose could ever of themselves achieve political results, the Frankfort parliament would have acquitted itself with credit. But German unity was much less dependent on theory than on conditions; in fact the conditions pre- sented so tough and complicated a problem that the delegates at Frankfort had hardly taken up their con- stitutional debates when they found themselves entan- gled in an inextricable net. Among the many grievous features of the general German situation the worst without doubt was the Austro-Prussian rivalry. On what basis of obligations and honors were the two states to be yoked together, or, in case yoking was impractical, to which should be conceded the political leadership? Those in favor of Progress and Reaction 117 Prussia were for excluding Austria altogether; they pointed to the racially mixed character of the Hapsburg monarchy, and because of their rejection of a historic member of the German family were derisively called Little Germans (Kleindeutsche). All in favor of creat- ing a Germany enfolding all Germans whatsoever, and therefore also the Austrians, took the name of Great Germans (Grossdeutsche). It serves to prove how recent developments, consti- tuting, as we may say, the logic of history, had been pushing Prussia to the front, that the long and fierce debate at Frankfort ended in the complete victory of the Little Germans. The circumstances that produced this result I cannot stop to examine. Suffice it that Aus- tria was formally excluded from the new German state and the headship thereof entrusted to the Prussian king, who was invited to adopt the title of emperor. It was a moment charged with electricity when in April, 1849, a -delegation from Frankfort presented itself to Fred- erick William in his palace at Berlin to offer him the hereditary German crown. With the whole nation fastening its gaze on the impressive scene, the king declined the honor. It was an act of rare pusillanimity and yet not without a cer- tain measure of excuse. The crown was offered by the people of Germany and therefore enjoyed, in the light of current democratic ideas, the very highest sanction; but for Frederick William, an old-fashioned believer in divine right, the only sanction at all conclusive would have to proceed from the consenting vote of the sov- ereign German princes. To this clash of principle was 118 The Making of Modern Germany added a substantial issue of fact. Since his fellow-rulers had not been consulted in the matter of the German crown, Frederick William had as good as no guarantee of their loyalty and good-will. Some of them indeed in their frenzied desire to retain an undiminished preroga- tive had not scrupled to enter into a secret league with Austria; and Austria, encouraged by this support to offer resistance to its elimination from Germany, sum- marily forbade the Prussian king to accept the German crown. A diplomatic note, couched in no uncertain terms, threatened war, in case he took the Frankfort offer seriously. Doubtless a bold man might have faced these various risks, summoned the people with drum and trumpet, and won eternal honor. But Frederick William was not such a man, and since his timid nature quailed be- fore the threatened struggle, in which, moreover, as we have seen, he would be pushed into the distasteful position of defending a democratic crown, he told the Frankfort delegates to take their dubious gift whence they had brought it. Therewith the whole tragi-comedy came to an abrupt end. The German parliament, " a company of damned professors," had decreed political unity but it lacked the means to enforce its own deci- sion. With heavy hearts the representatives turned homeward. German unification, the dream of the poets and philosophers, seemed incapable of realization. But what of the other hope which found utterance in the March revolution, the hope of putting an end to Prussian absolutism? Contemporaneously with the national parliament at Frankfort, a local parliament Progress and Reaction 119 (Landtag), sitting at Berlin, labored with the narrower task of giving Prussia a constitution. The assembly turned out to be inspired with very radical sentiments and proceeded to concoct an instrument which was very little to Frederick William's liking. He waited for the turning of the revolutionary tide, and when he thought the political excitement had abated, in December, 1848, adjourned the assembly sine die. Some impetuous radicals now issued a call for an insurrection, but the people, weary of the everlasting political turmoil, showed no desire to repeat the tri- umphs of the month of March. Almost to his own surprise the king found himself once more in command of the situation, and with the thought of redeeming his promise issued a constitution to his people. In, order to show a spirit of conciliation he took over many of its paragraphs from the constitution drafted by the recent Prussian Landtag; but all ultra-democratic fea- tures were carefully eliminated and the whole tone of the document became frankly monarchical. In the year 1850 this constitution, after being sub- jected to revision by a popular assembly, was put in force, and since it has been uninterruptedly operative in Prussia from 1850 down to our own day, a brief examination of it becomes imperative. First to observe, the king's position was carefully secured, for the civil and military administration of the realm was left in his hands; besides, the various departments of state were confided to ministers appointed and dismissed by him. As to the Prussian people, they were represented in the new system by a parliament of two houses. 120 The Making of Modern Germany The upper house, or house of lords, was made up of two groups : hereditary members, and members ap- pointed for life by the king on the nomination of the larger landowners, of the universities, and of the cities. Thus composed it was sure to have a very conservative character. The lower house, or chamber of deputies, was elected by the people. The two houses had the usual rights of modern legislatures; that is, they criti- cised the administration, they voted the taxes, they drew up the annual budget, and they gave their con- sent to all new laws. The right of dismissing the min- isters the legislators did not have, for the ministers were both in theory and in practice the agents of the monarch. All points considered, this constitution con- ceded important rights to the Prussian people, but it certainly also followed the line of Prussian tradition by securing to the king a large measure of authority and the genuine headship of the state. The feature of the Prussian constitution which in- vited, and to this day invites, the severest strictures of radical critics was the franchise with its so-called three- class system. The franchise provisions were the result of a desire to appear to grant universal suffrage while definitely favoring the propertied elements. The whole body of voters was divided into three classes on the basis of the tax-lists. The first class was composed of the largest taxpayers who together paid one-third of the direct taxes, the second class of next largest taxpay- ers who paid another third, and the third class of all the rest. In the first class were the richest citizens, compara- Progress and Reaction 121 tively speaking hardly more than a handful ; in the sec- ond class, which was more numerous, were enrolled the men of medium income; and in the third class were aggregated the multitudinous poor. When an election to the Prussian chamber of deputies took place the following procedure was observed: i, in a given par- liamentary district the three classes of voters met sep- arately in their respective polling-places, where each class elected the same number of delegates to a general assembly; 2, the delegates of the three classes came together in a general assembly and elected the deputy by majority vote. It is plain that in the meeting of the delegates the propertied elements were as two to one and that the successful candidate was likely to be a man both conservative and well-to-do. In consequence, the Prussian chamber of deputies, taken as a whole, has not been a democratic body and has generally shown a frank leaning toward vested interests.* Germans and Prussians who, when the Revolution of 1 848 had run its course, compared the much they had hoped for with the little they achieved were struck with a profound discouragement. And yet nothing would be more foolish than to declare that the great move- ment had been utterly in vain. True, the people had not been able to effect their unification through a popu- lar assembly, but the violent conflict of ideas and plans had given the death blow to many cherished and absurd illusions, and had brought to light all the stout realities of the situation. Thus everyone who had eyes in his head was now * For a fuller description of the Prussian suffrage see Appendix D. 122 The Making of Modern Germany aware, or should have been aware, that the Austro- Prussian rivalry would have to be settled before an effective German unity was to be thought of; and every- one should have been equally clear in his mind that an Austro-Prussian settlement was in all human proba- bility attainable only by war. In the light of the recent past only incurable sentimentalists continued to believe that the long-standing quarrel would yield to peaceful negotiations stimulated by after-dinner oratory and a feast of song. To the growing clearness touching the problem of unification was added new light on the subject of Prus- sia. For the moment its credit was low indeed, and the hopes of the patriots were turned to aversion, but to thinking Germans the great crisis must have brought a much more intimate knowledge of the true character of the Prussian state and of its elements both of strength and weakness. If king and government had deceived every generous expectation entertained of them, they had also proved to all but those hopelessly blinded by prejudice, that whatever prospect for Germany re- mained centered in the tight and solid, though back- ward monarchy of the north German plain. In trying to present a final summary of the situation, let us ask the question: what did the record of a year of revolution show? It showed, first, that Prussia had ridden the storm much more gallantly than any other German state, particularly its immediate rival, Austria, which all but suffered total shipwreck; second, that when the German people in parliament assembled argued out the question of their unity they ended by Progress and Reaction 123 turning instinctively to Prussia and the house of Hohen- zollern; and third, though the monarchy had proved immensely reluctant about assimilating modern fea- tures, it had none the less come round to present-day ideas by putting itself on a constitutional basis. Ad- mitting that the constitution was conservative and that radicals were justified in visiting it with their disfavor, the fact stands out — and the fact denotes an epoch in our story of the Prussian system — that political emancipation was conceded to a people who in all ordi- nary respects already stood among the leading nations and who needed just this added stimulus to inaugurate a new era of development. V Bismarck and the Unification of Germany 4Fift!) Lecture BISMARCK AND THE UNIFICATION OF GERMANY GREAT as was the disappointment of Germany in the revolution of 1848, it was none the less an invaluable experience for a nation which, politically, still lay in its swaddling-clothes — such was the reflec- tion with which I closed my review of the feverish mid- century crisis. It was not a small matter that Prussia had become a constitutionally governed state, and it was something for the country to be reminded, by refer- ence to a concrete instance, that when the necessity of a definite choice arose between Austria and Prussia, the eyes of all had fastened, as under an inner compulsion, on Berlin. On that great occasion Prussia, the chosen of the nation, had refused to act and assume the responsibili- ties of leadership. But suppose now that tardily and under altered circumstances she resolved to act. Sup- pose she reflected, or some king or statesman reflected for her, that in 1815, at the Congress of Vienna, the German princes had faced the problem of unification only to produce that sorry mongrel, the German Bund; that the people, the broad masses, had in 1848 tried their hand at the game, achieving an utter fiasco; and that it was now the turn of Prussia to see what she could do by striking out for herself. The reflection is [127] 128 The Making of Modern Germany not fanciful, for it supplies the true clue to the career of Otto von Bismarck. As prime minister of Prussia, commanding the power and resources of the state, he fashioned a unification program along Prussian lines and carried it to a triumphant conclusion. But before taking up the story of Bismarck we must recount the succession of a new ruler, particularly important since without his support Bismarck would hardly have forged to the front. King Frederick William IV had been so greatly dis- credited by the events of 1848 that neither friend nor foe looked to him further for political comfort, and when, in 1857, he was obliged to retire, owing to signs of an ominous mental derangement, he passed from the scene unmourned. In default of children, he was suc- ceeded by his brother, William I, who acted as regent until the death of the royal sufferer in 1861 permitted him to take the title of king. When summoned to the throne William was already sixty years old, and was inclined to consider the book of his life as good as written. In this he was mistaken; and the fame which he harvested in a long reign of thirty years was not so wholly thrust upon him as is sometimes represented. William was a tall, hand- some, soldierly man, son of the beloved Queen Louise and filled with much of her high sense of honor, though possessed of little of her emotional vivacity. He had spent his life in military service, and had acquired a very correct appreciation of what the Prus- sian army had done for the monarchy in the past and what it might still do in the time to come. That Prus- Bismarck and the Unification 129 sia had yielded to the threats of Austria in the late revo- lutionary crisis, thereby letting slip from its grasp the headship of Germany, had terribly wounded his suscep- tibilities, though he had been obliged to acknowledge that the unpreparedness of his country admitted of no other policy. None the less he took the disgrace to heart and was no sooner firmly seated in the saddle than he seized upon what was to him by far the most pressing question of the hour — the question of mili- tary reform. At this point I am obliged to return to the Prussian army where I left it in the War of Liberation. The labors of Scharnhorst had borne fruit in a series of remarkable victories, and had culminated in 1814 in the proclamation of universal obligatory service. But in the long peace period that followed, the system had developed certain gaps and deficiencies, of which the sum and substance was that the country, though doubled by 1860 in wealth and population, had the military establishment of half a century before. In consequence of this immobility the law of uni- versal service, which, in spite of the hardships it im- posed, had become a source of pride to the people, was practically nullified because only a fraction of the re- cruits, automatically presenting themselves each year for military training, could be accepted by the government. What King William proposed to do with a minimum of delay was to increase the number of regiments so that the whole annual quota of recruits could be accom- modated. But while thus engaged in bringing the army abreast of the population, he resolved to add a few 130 The Making of Modern Germany minor changes calculated to make for increased effi- ciency in the service. By the army bill as elaborated under his direction, the statutory universal service was to take the follow- ing form: for three years, beginning as a rule with his1 twentieth year, the young recruit was to serve with the colors; for the next four years he was to be with the Reserve, subject to immediate call in case of war; after that, for five years, he became a member of the Land- ivehr to be summoned in time of war in order to fill gaps in the Reserve; and finally, after being carried on the army lists for twelve years, he was incorporated to his thirty-ninth year in the Landsturm and became liable to service only as a last resort, as for instance, to repel a hostile invasion.* Having elaborated this bill with his ministers, King William had it submitted to the Prussian parliament for approval. There was little opposition at first, and the money appropriation necessary to provide almost fifty new regiments was duly voted. But it was ominous that it was voted only for a year, and when, in 1861, the appropriation came up a second time the chamber of deputies demanded as the price of its consent a num- * It should be noted that educated young men who got as far as a certain class in the gymnasium (high-school), served only one year with the colors. In return for this concession they were obliged to equip and maintain themselves at their own expense. The system as outlined above substantially holds to the present time. Perhaps the most important single change since William's day was effected shortly before 1900 when the service with the colors was reduced from three to two years, except for those who have to do with horses and artillery. It should also be noted at this point that service in the Landsturm is now extended to the forty-fifth year. Bismarck and the Unification 131 her of unimportant changes. A serious conflict followed between the government and the legislators, apparently over minor details of the army bill, in reality over a question of power. Prussia was now a constitutional monarchy — but where did the final authority rest? With the crown as of old, or with the creature of the new era, the elected chamber? The Liberal party, elated by the consciousness of a considerable majority in the house, naturally enough desired to swing the control to its side; while the king, though minded to obey the constitution as he understood it, stubbornly refused to agree that the executive had become a mere adjunct of the legislature. As soon as this constitutional issue loomed up behind the army bill, not only was the measure itself threat- ened, but a struggle was initiated which carried with it the- gravest possibilities. The monarch, greatly agi- tated, tried to find a way out. He changed his minis- ters, he called for new elections in the hope of getting a more favorable chamber — all in vain. Every move found the Liberal majority unimpaired and more re- solved than ever not to vote the army bill until the king had seen the evil of his constitutional interpretation and knuckled under to the new master. But knuckle under he would not, though the waves of hostile opinion were rising steadily and beginning even to beat upon the throne itself. As the only solution which promised civil peace and at the same time satisfied his sense of honor he resolved at last to abdicate in favor of his son, and in October, 1862, had already prepared the necessary document, 132 The Making of Modern Germany when his friends persuaded him to make one more attempt to carry the army bill under a new minister. Yielding to their counsels he summoned Otto von Bis- marck. Bismarck himself has told us in his Reminis- cences how in an interview with the king at the castle of Babelsberg he persuaded the old gentleman to tear up the abdication and then confidently shouldered the burden of the parliamentary conflict. The man who now stepped upon the scene was des- tined not only to uphold the army bill but to cut the Gordian knot of German unity and to carry his country to the front rank of European states. In 1862 no one as yet dreamed of the fame in store for him. He was known to be a country squire, a Junker, of the most conservative shade, and the hostile liberal parliamen- tarians scanning his career could detect nothing in it but the height of bureaucratic commonplace. The fact that he had not figured prominently in public life and was therefore relatively unknown is the adequate excuse for their shortsightedness. Otto von Bismarck was born in 1815 of an ancient land-holding family of Brandenburg, and received a good education with a view to preparing him for an administrative career in the service of the state. Dur- ing his stay at the university of Gottingen he made the acquaintance of an American student, John Loth- rop Motley, destined to acquire fame as the historian of the Netherlands. The two men, representative of different social worlds and of diametrically opposed schools of political thought, none the less found enough in common for a warm friendship which, revived by Bismarck and the Unification 133 occasional later visits, ended only with Motley's death in 1877. Bismarck's letters published in Motley's Cor- respondence show a tender and loyal side of his nature which the exclusive study of his political career would hardly lead one to suspect. University work and play over, the young squire, after passing the necessary examinations, embarked on the administrative drudgery associated with all bureau- cratic beginnings. Finding desk work highly unpala- table, he resigned his post in disgust and retired to his ancestral estates. By close attention to crops, hogs, markets, and the other problems of a busy agriculturist, he freed the family fortune from embarrassment, and might presently have settled down to the humdrum life of a country gentleman for good and all, if the mid- century revolution had not given him an opening and projected him into public life. His neighbors, impressed with his ability, sent him to Berlin to sit in the parlia- ment called together to make a Prussian constitution. In this assembly, in which radical and anti-moftarchial sentiments predominated, he showed a courage fre- quently akin to folly by expounding his conservative opinions in and out of season, sometimes at the very risk of his life. His defense of the royal cause suc- ceeded in drawing the delighted attention of Frederick William IV, who resolved to employ the bold champion of monarchy in the diplomatic service. Without pass- ing through any of the preparatory stages Bismarck was promoted at a bound to one of the most responsible posts, and in 1851 went to Frankfort-on-the-Main as Prussian ambassador to the German Bund. 134 The Making of Modern Germany During the next eleven years Bismarck served as the representative of his country at Frankfort, St. Petersburg, and Paris. It is the period of his political apprenticeship, during which he not only acquired a prodigious knowledge of the European situation, but, in touch with the great world and breathing its vital atmosphere, grew to the full stature of his manhood. Although he always remained a Prussian Junker, the child of a long line of Junker forebears, he absorbed the best of the culture of his time into his being and discarded much of that uncompromising conservatism with which he had made his debut in 1848. But how- ever much he grew in character and outlook, nothing ever swerved him from a whole-hearted, almost fanat- ical devotion to his country. It was with a strong Prussian sentiment that Bismarck had stepped into the public arena in 1848, and in spite of the disgrace harvested by Frederick William and the complete ebb of Prussian prestige, he never for one moment faltered in his faith in Prussia's destiny. It is not too much to say that Prussia, and only Prussia, filled his political horizon until he got to Frankfort; then slowly it dawned upon him that beyond Prussia there lay a. German fatherland. At Frankfort, in accordance with the articles of the deplorable Bund, the representatives of the German princes engaged in the useless discussion of issues which they had no power to settle. Ever since 1815 they had been occupied with these heavy academic sessions and in almost half a cen- tury had not agreed on a single measure worth record- ing. Bismarck and the Unification 135 It took about one morning of windy colloquy to open Bismarck's eyes to the whole incredible futility of this so-called union. Then his vigorous and elastic mind got to work. Capable as few men that have ever lived to penetrate make-believe, he saw that the whole tawdry, Frankfort edifice was nothing but a device to enable Austria to dominate Germany, and that the beginning of all good things would be the extinction of the federal sham. Presently a definite German policy began to take shape in his mind. The center and kernel of it was that Germany must be united firmly and gen- uinely under the only power fit to do the work, his own beloved Prussia. Such were the private views which Bismarck had developed, when in 1862 his sovereign summoned him to Berlin to act as prime minister and to steer the threat- ened army bill past the rocks and shoals and into port. His ministerial program was clear in his mind, so far as its main items were concerned, from the first day: he would dissolve as soon as possible the impotent Bund, he would eliminate Austria from Germany, and he would unite Germany under Prussian leadership. The steps to be taken to bring all this about remained to be determined and would of course depend on cir- cumstances; that, as a preliminary, Prussia must be armed and prepared for every eventuality was as clear as sunlight. Therefore he was of one mind with the king about the desirability of putting through the army reform and ready to risk his life in a struggle with the Liberal party rather than give up the bill. Accordingly, he insisted on the maintenance of the 136 The Making of Modern Germany new regiments, even though the appropriation for them was angrily struck out of the budget by the opposition. Manifestly guilty of a breach of the constitution, he found himself fiercely attacked on the floor of the house, and presently the whole country caught the parliamen- tary infection and reechoed with bitter constitutional strife. Bismarck became, as he himself stated, the best- hated man of Prussia, while foreign and domestic ob- servers freely prophesied a revolution, the terrible first fruits of which, as once upon a time in England in the days of Charles I and Strafford, would be the heads of King William and his defiant minister. Affairs were at this critical juncture when an event happened that drew the attention of the public else- where and gave Bismarck the opportunity for which he was waiting. In the autumn of 1863 the names of the provinces of Schleswig and Holstein passed like a flaming torch through Germany and fired all the stored powder barrels of national sentiment. The question of these two provinces was many decades old, and so complicated with historical claims and legal quibbles that justice cannot be done it here. It will suffice if, neglecting the legal side, we make an attempt to under- stand the national, and really only essential phase of the issue. Schleswig and Holstein, two provinces lying at the southern extremity of the peninsula of Jutland, had a ruler who was also, by an accident of succession, the king of Denmark. The union was merely personal, had lasted for generations, and had aroused no opposition until Denmark attempted to convert it into a genuine, Bismarck and the Unification 137 administrative and constitutional reality. Then the inhabitants remembered that they were not Danes but Germans, at least in overwhelming majority; for Hoi- stein was wholly German, and Schleswig was German except for a northern Danish rim. A great revolt broke out in that year celebrated for revolts, the year 1848, but the Schleswig-Holsteiners were defeated, largely because the European powers interfered in behalf of the king of Denmark. As usual in such cases, the fires of rebellion continued to smoul- der under the embers, and when in 1863 the king of Denmark, with the consent and at the instance of the Danish parliament, made a new effort at incorporation, the Schleswig-Holsteiners prepared once more to rise in arms. Of course, they were greatly encouraged in their resistance by the outspoken partisanship of their brothers throughout Germany. North and south, east and west, the Germans were of one mind and declared that under no circumstances were the duchies to be abandoned to the Danes. But how give effective help? Through the anaemic Bund, the only national government which Germany pos- sessed? Bismarck, with his sense for things that counted, laughed a scornful no, and, regardless of his unpopularity and of a new and frantic outbreak of criticism, pursued the only course which in his view was in harmony with the realities of the situation. The story of the next few years has many remark- able features but none more remarkable than this, that Bismarck stood almost literally alone and achieved what everybody wanted, the unity of the nation, by the 138 The Making of Modern Germany policy and method which he considered feasible but which the majority of his countrymen condemned in unmeasured terms. To begin with, he made up his mind that Prussia should be the decisive factor in the Schleswig-Holstein imbroglio. But, before interfering in the duchies, he saw the necessity of obtaining secur- ity against a possible Austrian attack from the rear. Logically therefore, he opened up negotiations with Austria. Although the Hapsburg monarchy was, in the min- ister's profound private view, the power to be humbled, the enemy above all others, he recognized the need of adjourning the day of reckoning with Vienna in order to dispose first of the more immediately pressing busi- ness. He therefore proposed to Austria a united inter- vention in behalf of Schleswig-Holstein, and Austria, probably in the hope of currying favor with the German patriotic party, consented. In January, 1864, Prussia and Austria together sent an ultimatum to the Danish government demanding a withdrawal of the acts injuri- ous to the rights and sentiments of the people of Schles- wig-Holstein. Denmark refused and war followed — the so-called Danish war of 1864. Though a war have a basis of justice, if it presents the picture of two strong men locked in combat with a boy, it will not be adjudged heroic and enlist enthusi- asm. Waiving the question of justice, always a difficult matter to decide, we may imagine that Denmark, con- fronted by Austria and Prussia, felt very much like a frightened boy, and would certainly never have accepted the challenge of its doughty antagonists if the Danish Bismarck and the Unification 139 ministry had not persuaded itself that it would receive help in its struggle from France or Great Britain or from both. In this it proved itself mistaken. France, and particularly Great Britain, made handsome prom- ises but declined to follow them up with deeds, and the result was that the Danish army fought alone and, after a valiant resistance, was utterly broken. There- upon the king of Denmark, in order to forestall worse disasters, was obliged to sue for peace. In August, 1 864, he made over his rights in Schleswig and Holstein to Austria and Prussia jointly. An arrangement more pregnant with dispute could hardly be imagined. Territorial partnerships have never worked well, and Bismarck, a hater of quack remedies, can not possibly have had any confidence in this one. Perhaps he consented to it because it was the' only solution that could be reached in the hurry of the moment; perhaps — and this is altogether more likely — he foresaw it would prove an apple, of dis- cord and so furnish a plausible excuse for that break with Austria which was a leading feature of his Ger- man policy. In any case, Austria and Prussia got into an immediate argument over the spoils of their Danish war. They tried various compromises, more or less futile, and in an incredibly short time were transformed from allies to enemies. Since Bismarck believed that war with Austria was a necessity, and since, moreover, the army reform had by this time been effected, he would personally have pre- ferred to try conclusions without more ado. But here he ran into a difficulty with his king who, as already 140 The Making of Modern Germany stated, was far from being the figurehead which some writers picture him. William, let us remember, not Bismarck, had inaugurated the army reform, his pur- pose being to make the universal service provision a reality and to increase the military effectiveness of Prus- sia. But he had no such high-flying political plans as Bismarck and he was distinctly averse to a war with Austria, if it could possibly he avoided. The result was that it took two years of maneuvering by Bismarck before he could get the war he wanted, the war which, in his judgment, had to be faced in order to shatter the existing German organization. Certain of the coming of the war even though it delayed, in April, 1866, he signed an alliance with the kingdom of Italy. This young state, which saw in Austria its mortal enemy, eagerly seized the opportunity of completing its national unity by taking possession of Venice, still in the Hapsburg hands. By virtue of Bis- marck's arrangements, Austria in the impending strug- gle would thus be caught between the Prussian and Italian fires. In order to offer a vigorous resistance the Austrian government, as soon as it got wind of the Italo- Prussian arrangement, made overtures to the German princes, and almost all of them, especially the more important, such as the kings of Bavaria, Wiirttemberg, Saxony, and Hanover, apprehensive of Bismarck's uni- tarian plans, agreed to throw in their lot with the Haps- burg monarchy. In June, 1866, the tense situation came to a head and war broke out. All central Europe was engaged on one side or another, but the north and the south German Bismarck and the Unification 141 powers were the giant protagonists of the struggle, and the question between them, stripped of all befogging minor issues, such as the possession of Schleswig-Hol- stein, was the question, born over a hundred years ago in the days of Frederick the Great : which was supreme in Germany, Austria or Prussia? The campaign of 1866 was destined to reveal the reorganized Prussian army to an astonished world. The Prussian parliament and people, still venomously hostile to Bismarck, at first opposed the struggle as they had opposed the military bill, the Danish war, and every issue with which Bismarck's name was connected, but once confronted with the necessity of fighting for their country, they gathered as one man around their sovereign. Over the subsequent enthusiasm they gradually forgot their exaggerated animosity against a better military establishment. Doubtless, too, they were impressed with the circumstance that the decisive factor of the war was Prussia's readiness in every tiny detail; owing to it, the advantages were from first to last with the northern kingdom. Not only was the Prussian army mobilized more rapidly than that of its antagonists, but it was better equipped, above all, with a quick-firing infantry weapon, the so-called needle-gun; it boasted a more highly trained set of officers; and it was under a more effective supreme command. This had been entrusted to General von Moltke, the scientific continuator of the military traditions of Napoleon Bonaparte. Moltke, a taciturn and studious man, believed in having everything planned out beforehand down to the last button of the last 142 The Making of Modern Germany uniform, and had prepared a plan of campaign which aimed to strike Austria to her knees with one over- whelming blow. Accordingly, he invaded the Hapsburg province of Bohemia on three converging lines, and on July 3, 1866, with all his assembled forces fell upon the enemy. The battle that followed is known sometimes by the name of Koeniggraetz, sometimes by the name of Sadowa, and constitutes an impressive tribute to the genius of its planner and to the courage and discipline of the Prussian soldiery. With the closing in of night the Austrians were dead, captured, or scattered, and their resistance as good as broken. The Prussian army immediately proceeded southward toward Vienna and might have taken the city if the beaten and discouraged Austrian sovereign had not made up his mind to sue for peace. That Austria had won some successes against its other enemy, Italy, fell with hardly the weight of a feather into the scales, in view of the completeness of the catastrophe in Bohemia. Besides, the south Ger- man allies of the Austrians had been defeated by the Prussians in a number of minor engagements and further help from them was out of the question. It was therefore the part of wisdom to close with Prussia before worse befell. Negotiations on being opened led to a provisional settlement, which was shortly after converted into the definitive treaty of Prague (August, 1866). It is worth noting that the whole war barely lasted seven weeks and is one of the shortest in history. By the terms of the treaty of Prague, Germany Bismarck and the Unification 143 entered upon her new and long-wished-for career of unity. True, the unity of 1866 was imperfect, but the foundations laid were so ample and solid that the com- pletion of the edifice was a foregone conclusion. If Bismarck did not get all he "wanted, he managed at least to have the essentials of his German program written into the treaty. These were : First, the Bund was declared dissolved; second, Austria acknowledged her exclusion from Germany; third, Prussia was author- ized to form a union of all those German states lying north of the river Main, the union to receive the name of the North German Confederation. You will observe that the south German states, four in number, Bavaria, Wiirttemberg, Baden, and Hesse, were excluded from the newborn Germany. And thereby hangs a diplomatic tale fraught with very notable consequences. Bismarck was naturally not averse to completing the German union at one stroke, and Austria, his prostrate antagonist, was in 'no posi- tion to hinder him. But another and a fresh power stepped into the arena at this juncture — France. France was ruled in this period by Napoleon in, who had at first taken no very passionate interest in the threatening Austro-Prussian conflict. Napoleon had, if anything, favored Prussia in the mistaken expectation that Prussia, as the smaller of the two German powers, would be defeated and would have to gather under his wing clamoring for protection. The rapidity of the Prussian triumph took his breath away and not unnaturally alarmed both him and his people as soon as they discovered that Bismarck planned nothing 144 The Making of Modern Germany less than the unification of the whole of Germany; that is, the creation of a formidable empire just across the Rhine. French public opinion was emphatic that this purpose should not be consummated and, really a bit reluctantly, for Napoleon personally believed that German unification could not in the long run be thwarted, the emperor sent an ambassador to the Bohemian battlefields to forbid the carrying out of Bismarck's plans. The inflexible Bismarck, who could always yield a point when yielding was politic, agreed to be content with something less than the whole bill, and the result was the compromise already mentioned, authorizing the union of north Germany with the express exclusion of the south German states. With regard to them the declaration was written into the treaty that they were to remain sovereign and independent. Napoleon had undoubtedly scored a success, but it was a dangerous victory since it was built on an act of interference in the internal affairs of Germany and created a sentiment of rancor between France and the increasingly self- confident kingdom of Prussia. Meanwhile peace had been declared and the Prus- sian armies withdrawn from Austrian soil. King Wil- liam, with Bismarck and Moltke at his side, was received in triumph in Berlin. Amidst enthusiastic acclamations a reconciliation was effected between the monarch and his people as well as between the minister and the parliament. In fact the minister suddenly fell heir to a popularity that was as immense and unreason- ing as his former disfavor. His proposals touching the Bismarck and the Unification 145 new union, the North German Confederation, were therefore received with approval and the constitution, which he drew up with his own hand and submitted to the representatives of the people, was passed with little alteration. Adopted and put in force in 1867, this instrument has remained with a few, insubstantial changes the con- stitution of Germany down to our own day. By virtue of it, the federal executive was declared to be hereditary in the king of Prussia who received the title of President of the North German Confederation. As to the legis- lative power, it was to be exercised by two bodies, the Bundesrath and the Reichstag. The Bundesrath was a sort of national senate made up of representatives of the component governments; in this assembly Prussia cast a larger number of votes than any of the other states but did not control a sufficient number to carry any measure by herself. The Reichstag represented the most interesting and novel because most democratic feature of the consti- tution. It was elected on the basis of universal male suffrage — one representative being apportioned to every one hundred thousand inhabitants — and was authorized to vote all taxes and pass all laws. It did not, however, control the federal ministers, who were appointed and dismissed by the executive. For the leading federal minister, the prime minister as he is called in other countries, was revived the ancient title of chancellor, and naturally Bismarck received the first appointment to the post. It is a composite and not always logical instrument, 146 The Making of Modern Germany this Bismarckian constitution of 1867, but one thing is clear, to wit, that Prussia — its king and government — by means of it secured a dominating role in the new Germany. This has been lamented in some quarters, both in Germany and abroad, but it is difficult to see how any other result could have been obtained in view first, of Prussia's historical development, and second, of her area and population, her mere material weight, which was considerably greater than that of all the other states put together.* The chief interest during the first years of the exist- ence of the new Germany attaches to the relations it maintained to the great nation beyond its western boundary. We have noted the irritation occasioned in France by the victory over Austria. French opinion, which looked with almost unanimous ill-will upon the powerful state formed under Prussian leadership, urged Napoleon III to do his best to delay the German con- solidation and, in the event of failure, to insist on some sort of territorial compensation. It was in pursuit of this policy that Napoleon, after having done his utmost to keep the four south German states from being sucked into the national whirlpool, now came forward with new demands. He asked successively for Prussia's consent to his acquiring German territory on the left bank of the Rhine, the kingdom of Belgium, and finally the little state of Luxemburg. Bismarck managed to thwart all these plans with * On further features of the Constitution see the Appendix: for the full list of the German states Appendix B ; for the title and powers of the executive, Appendix C ; for the Reichstag suffrage, Appendix D. Bismarck and the Unification 147 the result of a growing exasperation between the French and the Prussian governments and the nations behind them. It was plain that if the two states continued to live long at such nerve-racking tension, they would not be able to control either themselves or the situation. When two neighbors, engaged in daily intercourse, go about with hate in their hearts and concealed weapons on their persons, no sensible man will be surprised to hear that there has been a collision. It was the so-called Spanish incident that dropped the match in the powder-barrel. This incident enjoys a great fame, much greater, in my view, than it merits, because of the blind habit of mankind to be impressed with the immediate occasion rather than to deeply con- sider the ultimate causes of an event. If I have cor- rectly interpreted the intensely hostile feeling between France and Germany, it came from the unification of Germany on which Bismarck and the majority of the German people were set, and which France was equally resolved to hinder or at least delay. This is the nub of the matter, but I acknowledge and say again that a succession of incidents, befalling between 1866 and 1870, contributed to swell the existing envy and sus- picion. Of these incidents the Spanish affair, leading to a dramatic climax and catastrophe, certainly de- serves attention, provided we are agreed not to lose our historical perspective and accept a part of the story for the whole. The Spanish affair grew out of a rebellion in Spain with which in itself we are not concerned. The throne being vacant, a Spanish committee in July, 1 870, offered 148 The Making of Modern Germany the succession to Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmarin- gen, a German prince distantly related to the king of Prussia. When the French government heard of the offer, it dispatched an ambassador to King William, who happened to be taking the waters at Ems, to ask him to forbid his relative to accept the Spanish crown. Thereupon, either of his own free will or under private pressure from the king the young prince declined the proffered honor. It would have been the part of wis- dom if the French government had contented itself with this result. But moved by the desire to score as heavily as possible against its hated rival, it now came forward with a new demand to the effect that King William should give assurances that no Hohenzollern prince would ever in the future be a candidate for the Spanish throne. To such a sweeping pledge the king would not com- mit himself and a deadlock ensued which was broken by the action of Bismarck. The chancellor of the North German Confederation had had no hand in the early stages of the Ems negotiations. He was enjoying a vacation on his estates, miles away from Ems, and was kept informed of developments by an irregular correspondence. Not till the second French demand was presented did the king, rendered indignant by the insistence of Napoleon, feel that he needed his chan- cellor's advice. He telegraphed him a detailed account of his conversations with the French ambassador and Bismarck incontinently communicated an abbreviated form of the dispatch to the press.* * On the Ems dispatch see Appendix G. Bismarck and the Unification 149 His undoubted purpose was to answer the French blast with a counterblast and to stand by the conse- quences even though, as seemed not unlikely, the French people would take the brusque tone of Bismarck's com- munication as an insult and insist on war. The truth is that, in view of the abnormally strained relations between Paris and Berlin, Bismarck had come to the conclusion that war with France in the near future was inevitable; and further, he had recently been brought around to the opinion that such a war was not undesir- able since it would almost certainly complete the still fragmentary union of Germany in an outburst of patri- otic passion. He had avoided the war for four years, sometimes in the face of considerable provocation, but he would not avoid it any longer if an opportunity presented itself that was favorable to his side. As such an opportunity he looked upon the Spanish inci- dent, and in so far must undoubtedly be regarded as a promoter of the war. But that recognition should not for a moment hinder us from seeing the equal or greater responsibilities of France arising from the headlong combativeness of the French government and from the permanently bad temper of the French public obstinately hostile to German unification. On July 15, 1870, the French empire declared war on Prussia and of course, by implication, on the North German Confederation. The whole North sprang to arms as one man; but what would the South do, the South on which Prussia, only four years before, had made war and which, by virtue of the treaty of Prague, was excluded from the new union? The South acted 150 The Making of Modern Germany precisely as Bismarck had foreseen. The inflamed nationa.1 sentiment crowded all petty animosity into the background and insisted on making common cause with the northern brothers. In point of fact, four years before, Bismarck had arranged secret treaties with the South German States, providing that they unite their forces with Prussia's in case of war. He now asked that the treaties be exe- cuted; but even if they had not existed, Bavaria, Wiirt- temberg, Baden, and Hesse would have entered the fray for the simple reason that the popular clamor in favor of joining hands with the North was unanimous and irresistible. Thus all sections armed themselves with- out delay and it was a united Germany which, for the first time in many centuries, marched against the foe. The enthusiasm and union of Germany were import- ant moral factors in the subsequent conflict, but they would never have been decisive if the German armies had not been properly prepared for the struggle. Since 1866 the military system of Prussia had been copied by the lesser states and the advantages springing from this general readiness were great. The German armies were sooner in the field, they were more per- fectly equipped, they outnumbered their adversary, and they were more ably officered under the supreme direc- tion of the famous strategist, Moltke. As soon as the rival forces clashed, the French lines bent and broke and Germany marched from victory to victory. In a series of battles, culminating on August 18, in the battle of Gravelotte, one French army was shut up in the fortress of Metz, and two weeks later, on Bismarck and the Unification 151 September 2, a second French army, the last available for field service, was driven into the fortress of Sedan and forced to surrender. Napoleon led the Sedan army in person and with it fell into the hands of the enemy. As soon as his capture was announced in Paris, the people of the capital rose, overthrew the disgraced empire, and on September 4 proclaimed a republic. The republic marks the last and most honorable phase of the French resistance. The hurriedly organ- ized government did what it could to create a new fight- ing force and save France from defeat, but the problem exceeded its strength. From Sedan the Germans pro- ceeded to Paris and subjected the capital, which since the two easy captures in the time of Napoleon I had been converted into the greatest fortress of Europe, to a strenuous siege. It was not a light task to surround with an unbroken cordon of troops a city of such size, especially as the provisional French government saw in the breaking of German lines its main military object and battered at them incessantly. After a four months' struggle the German circle was still intact while the Parisians, cut off from the rest of the world, were reduced to the point of starvation. Under the circumstances Paris was obliged to capitu- late and the government to sue for peace. A prelimi- nary treaty signed at Versailles in February, 1871, was followed a few months later by the definitive peace of Frankfort. By its terms France paid Germany an indemnity of one billion dollars and ceded Alsace and a part of Lorraine. Even before the treaty was signed Germany had 152 The Making of Modern Germany reached the goal of her efforts and effected her final unification. The spontaneous action of all sections of the people at the beginning of the war, coupled with the profound emotion released by the German victories, created an irresistible sentiment in favor of the entrance of the southern states into the North German Confed- eration. Negotiations, begun between Bismarck and the representatives of Bavaria and her neighbors, were rapidly brought to a head, and on January 18, 1871, the completed union was proclaimed to the world in an impressive ceremony, conducted by one of those strokes of irony in which history abounds in Louis xiv's splen- did palace at Versailles. In this former home of the French monarchy and in the midst of the roar of cannon from the siege of Paris, King William of Prussia was hailed by the new title of German emperor. As the constitution of 1867 had been wisely drafted with an eye to the early entry of the South German States, very few changes, most of them merely verbal, sufficed to bring it abreast of the new situation. In the light of the unity crowned and sanctified by means of the war of 1870, that struggle came to be regarded by Germans with something almost suggestive of religious fervor. But however much they were inclined to congratulate themselves on the unity re- gained, they had to accept one dangerous fruit sprung from the late conflict. The war left France with a sting- ing resentment in her heart, partly because of her defeat and consequent loss of self-esteem, partly because of the cession of Alsace and Lorraine. She made it per- Bismarck and the Unification 153 fectly clear from the first hour that she had her purpose set upon revenge and would sooner or later attempt to undo the verdict of 1870. The grave breach therefore between France and Germany that marked the period 1866-70, so far from being healed, was made irrepar- able. Could this result have been avoided by means of more generous terms imposed on France, above all, by not insisting on the cession of Alsace-Lorraine? As many well-disposed persons have answered this question in the affirmative the opinion deserves at least to be recorded. The Germans for their part have not failed vigorously to defend their act. They have pointed out that the territory of Alsace-Lorraine had been torn from Germany by force in the period of Ger- man weakness in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies, and that what the sword has taken, the sword may in fairness also restore. The population, they further insisted, was in its overwhelming majority still German in speech and manners, although its long asso- ciation with France had undoubtedly given it a super- ficial French veneer. Finally, with regard to the abstract question of justice among nations they declared that such justice can not be construed as an obligation of Germany in its dealings with France but not of France in its dealings with Germany.* Looking at the issue from every side the fair-minded student will probably agree that Alsace-Lorraine is a thorny problem which can not be settled by an Olym- pian verdict. Assuming the historical view-point, and letting our mind travel back into the past, we become * On the Alsace-Lorraine question see Appendix H. 154 The Making of Modern Germany aware that the issue belongs to the familiar category of boundary disputes; that it has been in debate between France and Germany for about a thousand years ; and that it has thus far, in accordance with the imperfect nature of man, been handled exclusively by the crude and primitive method of force. Will the time ever come when it shall be solved by the dictates of reason and humanity? We are privileged to hope so, nay, we must nurse that hope if the amelioration of man's lot is ever to be more than a dream; but for the immediate day in which we live, let us remember that our first obligation as students and observers of life is to see things as they are. In this realistic mood we may, without dismissing our ultimate hopes, content our- selves with reiterating that Germany acquired the ter- ritory of Alsace-Lorraine in 1870, and that, since France resented the seizure, an issue was created which supplied new fuel to an already ancient and terrible heritage of strife. Far back in the Middle Ages, when the first German empire began to break up and feudal chaos descended upon the land, the people expressed their national sor- row in the form of a legend. They declared — and the whisper passed from mouth to mouth — that the last great Kaiser to hold the enemies of Germany in check, the Kaiser Barbarossa, was not dead; he was sleeping in the depths of Kyffhausser in the very heart of Germany, to awaken in his own good time and descend from his mountain side in the glory of crown and scep- ter. Century after century the legend lived on refusing to perish, so that when the new empire was born in Bismarck and the Unification 155 1871 it seemed no more than the realization of an age- long dream. Emperor William, a tall and chivalrous figure touched with the reverence of almost four-score years, looked not unlike the legendary Barbarossa, and Bis- marck and Moltke, titanicin_£erson as well as in achievement, seemed no unworthy paladins to ride in state at either side of their imperial master. A touch of mysticism inherent in the Germanic character saw the new empire as the old come back to earth, and swept the nation with a tumultuous sense of the renewal of its youth. Just as the German people had lost their old unity largely by their own faults and weaknesses, so they had won their new coherence under superb leadership, it is true, but essentially by their own strength, by their own will. That proud consciousness started them on their fresh career with a remarkable momentum. What would they, thus elated, do for themselves and for the world? VI Germany Since Her Unification Lecture GERMANY SINCE HER UNIFICATION IN my sixth and concluding lecture I shall concern * myself with the story of Germany since her unifica- tion in 1871. However, a narrative of events, pure and simple, will not suffice, and will have to be supplemented from time to time by exposition and argument because a great deal of recent German development has pro- ceeded upon lines unfamiliar to Americans, and because a passionate antagonism, having its origin in the resent- ments created by the present war, has spread a mist before our eyes obscuring many things of which we should none the less strive to obtain a clear picture. In pursuance of this plan of narrative coupled with discussion, I shall take up, precedent to all else, that profound mystery in American eyes, that eternal enigma, the German state. The German state of 1871 was, as we have seen, the perfectly logical development of the Prussian state, the successive phases of which I must be permitted once more to recall. In the first place, I have shown that the early Prussian state from the Elector Frederick William to Frederick the Great was patriarchal in principle and method, the hereditary chief directing its energies, with good intentions, doubt- less, but exactly as in his wisdom and pleasure he saw fit. Next, I have shown that when this state miserably [159] 160 The Making of Modern Germany broke down at Jena it was rebuilt by Stein and other worthies, along the traditional lines of authority, it is true, but with modifications resulting from the recogni- tion that the cooperation of the people was indispensable to its health and vigor. This second phase was fol- lowed by a third when, as a consequence of the revolu- tion of 1848, the king issued a constitution. A direct share by the representatives of the people in making laws and voting taxes was now admitted without, how- ever, as the crisis over the army bill showed, subjecting the crown to the dictation of the legislature. The German state of 1871 built around Prussia was the fourth stage in this evolution and, having been built by the Prussian Bismarck, shows essentially Prussian features. That means, to put the matter in a nutshell, that the modern German state constitutes a fusion — so far as I can see unique in the world — of the princi- ples of authority and democracy. The authority all Americans recognize and many denounce in unmeas- ured terms; the democracy, which is the undeniable yokefellow of authority, is often willfully ignored. But democracy and authority in, on the whole, healthy interaction, constitute what I must insist on as the peculiar German contribution to the political experi- ments of the present day. The equilibrium of the two principles may be ob- served all along the line, from the central government at Berlin to the village affairs of Weissnichtwo. The new federal authorities — Kaiser, Bundesrath, and Reichstag — did not, as already pointed out, destroy the state governments any more than the federal author- Germany since Unification 161 ities in the analogous organization of our own United States meant the wiping out of the component entities. The state governments of Prussia, Bavaria, and the other twenty-odd states continued to handle all strictly local business by means of their own separate legis- latures and administrations. Below the state governments we encounter the pro- vincial and municipal governments with their still more restricted tasks. Government in Germany is therefore not over-centralized, but carefully graded and distrib- uted in order to meet the needs of a complex social body; moreover, at every point, high and low, an adjust- ment is attempted — the most characteristic thing as I am insisting in the German system — between an authoritative administration, which exercises the actual direction of affairs, and a body representative of the people, the chief function of which is to remind the administration that it does not exist for its own sake. Certain advantages springing from the system are, at least in German eyes, undeniable and must be glanced at if we are to serve any useful purpose with this inquiry. First, a German would have you observe the high char- acter of the administration. All the administrative posts are open to the citizens on the basis of special study proved by an examination. The consequence is that Germany is governed by trained men, by experts. The nation has convinced itself that government in these days of multiplied public enterprises and countless human ramifications demands intelligence fortified by special preparation, and that the best brains of the coun- try ought to feel tempted to choose a public career as 162 The Making of Modern Germany a regular livelihood. Of course dull individuals make their way into office and even originally alert men often lose their briskness in the heavy routine of a bureau- cratic existence but, allowance made for human failings, the statement may be ventured that in Germany more than elsewhere the affairs of nation, province, and city rest in the hands of specially trained public servants. A second advantage is that the German administra- tion has the continuity and independence required for fearlessly carrying through large undertakings. In many other countries a popular election or an adverse vote in the legislature suffices to check and even to paralyze the transaction of necessary public business. In such countries the legislature possesses a control over the government which produces some admitted evils; as, for instance, the promotion of friends and relatives of the legislators to office, boss rule, which means the control of legislature and administration in the interest of a clique, and finally, corrupt contracts involving what we familiarly know as graft. If these evils are almost unknown in Germany it goes without saying that it is not owing to the purer moral character of the German public servants, but to the system which does not put the administration under the thumb of the legislators prone — since they are human, too prone, alas ! — to abuse an extraordinary power. The independence of the German adminis- tration from minute, legislative control would therefore appear to make for honesty of service and continuity and efficiency of performance. A third advantage lies in the extraordinarily firm and Germany since Unification 163 close organization of the nation secured by an authori- tative government. Germany has a social and economic unity that is probably without parallel. The reason is simple enough, for it lies in the fact that the country is not and has never been passionately individualistic. Individualism was the great creed of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and did a magnificent service, since it freed mankind from many ancient trammels imposed by king, church, nobles, guilds, law courts and other medieval inheritances. England and the United States are the two countries where individualism celebrated its greatest triumphs and where, in consequence, there became fixed in the laws and habits of the people a political system combining the greatest freedom of the citizen with a state exer- cising a minimum of control. Where the individual insists on free play for himself and a laissez faire atti- tude on the part of the government, you will always have a loose social organization often with a sorry appearance of disorder and cross purposes. Germany, in sharp contrast to England and the United States, represents the victory of the collectivist spirit by vir- tue of which the individual is subordinated to the whole, and a magnificent order binds and animates the mass. Whenever man does not work for a personal end, his energy and interest, we have been told by partisans of individualism, must needs flag; but it would be very difficult to discover an unusual degree of individual slackness in modern Germany. On the contrary, let the riddle be solved as it will, even though the German sees himself as a mere cog in a collectivist society, he 164 The Making of Modern Germany is one of the most energized individuals alive today. Apparently the idea of a whole, outside and beyond himself, lends his labor at his appointed post a certain exaltation and makes him alertly responsive to the call of society which is the call of duty. In fact his duty is a more important concept to him than his rights, and instead of his spending his time fighting for his rights, he gets what he considers his fair citizen measure of them through the performance of his duty. Precisely here belong the Verboten signs which the self-assertive individualist from foreign parts invari- ably picks out as marks of German passivity and inferi- ority. It is verboten to walk on the railroad tracks; it is verboten to spit on the sidewalk; it is verboten to take your wraps to your seat at the theater, and so forth and so forth. A traveling American feels himself out- raged by such injunctions, but your communistically minded German does what he is told without a single rebellious thought because he appreciates the value of order, and recognizes that individual compliance with social regulations furthers the good of the whole. Finally, it remains to point out that the German claims for his system that it is democratic since it enfolds every man, woman, and child, and actively contributes to the welfare of each and all. In effect the German state recognizes the right of every member of the com- monwealth to a living and accepts the obligation of finding him work. In consequence, while there is pov- erty in Germany, there is no pauperism; and certainly a much more evenly distributed well-being prevails than in individualist countries, like England and the Germany since Unification 165 United States. These latter countries are loth to admit that authoritative Germany is or can be democratic, and urge the claim that their individualism has produced the only true democracy, hall-marked and authentic. In view of such sharply opposed opinions can it be that democracy is susceptible of different definitions and does not present the same face to every observer? Let us rest our eyes for a moment on the familiar condi- tions of our own country. Our competitive individual- ism has demanded and produced a rare freedom of action. Liberty and the pursuit of happiness — mark the coupling of these two concepts in our Declaration of Independence — are the ends at which we aim and in which we discover the essence of democracy. But free- dom and the pursuit of happiness necessarily bring with them inequality of status, since the strong come to the front and more and more monopolize the wealth of the nation together with its political control. Immense pauperized masses are a feature of every purely competitive society, and these masses can not possibly have or at least long retain any enthusiasm for a freedom that grinds them in the dust. In no case will they agree that competitive freedom makes for democracy or that any such democracy is more than the hollowest of phrases. What these submerged groups • understand by democracy, a democracy that is more than painted fruit for the thirsty, is a guaranteed living for everybody, a community enterprise in which every man to the lowest ditcher and hedger is a shareholder. In their eyes the competitive system with its swollen profits and inordinate power for the few, is a passing 166 The Making of Modern Germany phase which can not be overcome fast enough. Its beneficiaries are the capitalists and their hangers-on, the upper and middle classes, of which classes the whole individualist system merely serves to consecrate the triumph. The more we think about the matter the clearer it becomes that our dominant classes have abused the word democracy in their group interest. They carry the expression on their lips like a conjuring formula, but the thing they mean in their heart is not democracy but Liberalism. Liberalism, in fact, has been the genu- ine capitalist faith in the United States and, above all, in England throughout the industrial expansion of the nineteenth century. It is Liberalism that asks for freedom, both political and economic, in order that its upper and middle class adherents may amass wealth and climb the ladder of happiness; but Liberalism is not in the least concerned with anything resembling an equal distribution of goods among all members of society, indeed it is passionately opposed to any such idea. But if economic equality, rejected by Liberalism, is at all a true democratic ideal, Liberalism and democracy, instead of being identical, are fairly antipodal, antipodal in the same sense as the two concepts for which they respectively stand, freedom and equality. A belief to the contrary notwithstanding, absolute freedom and absolute equality are what the philosophers call theoretic opposites; you can only enjoy them together by a practical fusion, that is, on the basii of a compromise. Now Germany, which never bowed to the sway of Germany since Unification 167 individualism and never experienced an out-and-out capitalist rule, has declared her readiness to get along with less freedom in order to have more equality, and bases her claim to being democratic on this choice. And if democracy is the problem of the masses, the powerful engine of their material and moral uplift, I do not see how we can fail to admit that the American and English attachment to Liberalism works undemocratically and that non-Liberal, authoritative Germany is dedicated to a much more genuinely democratic course.* * Our American failure to understand that Democracy and Liberal- ism as well as equality and liberty are antithetical rather than synony- mous concepts could be illustrated by daily statements from every news- paper in the land. I submit an excerpt from the Albany correspondent of the Chicago Tribune of August 13, 1915: " William Barnes Jr. today warned the constitutional convention, now in session here, that if a stop was not put to what he termed ' socialistic ' or class legislation there would be established in this country an auto- cratic state similar to that of Germany, ' denying utterly the American theory of equality.' " Mr. Barnes' attack was contained in a speech urging the convention to adopt his amendment prohibiting the legislature from passing mini- mum wage, old age pensions, or similar laws." Mr. Barnes is the Republican boss of the state of New York, agent of capital and the instrument of its political control. He therefore believes in middle class Liberalism and very properly is opposed to the German system. Observe, however, that he represents himself as enamored of " the American theory of equality." " To be thy defender I hotly burn, to be a Calidore, a very Red Cross Knight." The attitude never fails to bring a political meeting to its feet. My opinion is, not that Mr. Barnes is insincere in his professions, but that he is just mentally con- fused, like the whole body of our middle classes. Unfortunately the confusion redounds to the personal advantage of the New York boss and all other bosses, whose rule is likely to continue until we intellectually exert ourselves and recognize that liberty and equality, under prevailing 'conditions, are antagonistic, and that we must choose between them. What Mr. Barnes and, for that matter, the whole American middle class, really think about equality is charmingly illustrated by his naively expressed aversion for " minimum wage, old age pensions, or similar law.." 168 The Making of Modern Germany To turn now from discussion to the movement of events, I would have you understand that Germany from the moment of winning her unity showed an enormous vitality, not only because the fetters fell away from her limbs but also, and perhaps chiefly, because she became filled with a great and uplifting faith in her destiny. The result was a powerful forward movement along all lines of human endeavor, producing notable achievements in government, industry, science, educa- tion, and the arts. For many years after the French war the great name was Bismarck. Like Siegfried in the epic story of the Nibelungs, he had stood at the anvil and had swung the hammer in order to forge the mighty sword where- with to slay the dragon. But none knew better than the Iron Chancellor that the proclamation of the empire was only a beginning. The landmarks of a long-stand- ing national division could not be obliterated over night and called for unremitting labor if a genuinely new order was to replace the old. The first Reichstag, filled with the spirit of hope and confidence, cooperated with Bismarck and passed laws establishing a national coin- age, an Imperial Bank, and a national system of weights and measures; at the same time it entirely overhauled the system of justice, crowning its work with a codifi- cation of the German civil law. Bismarck also began a struggle with the Catholic Church, the socalled Kulturkampf, the purpose of which was to establish the unquestioned supremacy of the state; but his success in this contest was far from brilliant and after a few years he was glad to bury the From a fainting by Lentach BISMARCK Germany since Unification 169 hatchet on the basis of a compromise. A weighty con- sequence of this episode, very little to Bismarck's taste, was the creation of a Catholic political party which suc- ceeded in getting the Catholic voters lined up behind it and which has played an important part in German affairs ever since. Far and away the most important legislative measure of this period was Bismarck's new economic policy. On its creation in 1871 the German Empire found itself in possession of an economic policy inherited from an earlier time. It was expressed by the word Zolherein, the economic union of Germany, effected, as we are aware, by Prussian statesmanship in the first half of the nineteenth century. Now Germany had enjoyed undoubted advantages under the Zollverein, not the least of which was the encouragement of capital and the gradual introduction of the new system of machine production. But England and France, which were earlier on the scene as industrial powers, long retained an easy lead and were able to swamp the German mar- kets with their exports. Partly to encourage native manufactures, partly to swell the German revenues, Bismarck took under con- sideration a plan to replace the low tariff schedules of the Zolherein, not far removed from free trade, with a system of high duties. This was protection, and in the year 1879 it passed the Reichstag and became the law of the empire. From that day to this Germany, in contrast to England, but in essential agreement with the United States, has been true to the protective sys- tem and has increased its industrial output and its for- 170 The Making of Modern Germany eign trade by leaps and bounds. However, that the increase is due to protection is clamorously denied by free traders, who insist on ascribing it to other causes. You will permit me to waive this complicated aca- demic issue and content myself with reiterating the undeniable fact of the rise of a new economic Germany after 1879. Its leading features were individual energy, coupled with intelligent business organization. Larger and larger masses of capital were invested in manu- facturing enterprises, science put its widening knowl- edge at the service of industry, a merchant marine carried the products of labor to foreign parts, and agriculture, taking advantage of the new chemistry, doubled and even trebled the output of the farms. It should be carefully observed that this German devel- opment was not one-sidedly industrial, or commercial, or agricultural^ but that, in consequence of the unre- laxed supervision of the government, it embraced all departments of human activity and gave birth to an unusually well balanced economic system. The amaz- ing multiplication of manufactures, accompanied, as is always the case, by the magic growth of towns, has undoubtedly given preponderance to the urban over the agricultural element — and this preponderance is cer- tain to increase rather than diminish — but this devel- opment does not mean that the interests of those having land investments have been neglected as in England, where the favor extended to the manufacturers has gone the length of effectively driving the farmers off the land. All this economic expansion was brought about, not Germany since Unification 171 over night, but through many decades and was prima- rily the work of individuals — bankers, engineers, chem- ists, merchants, managers, and all the motley company of modern captains of industry. But from all I have said before about the directive character of the German state it must be clear that the labor of the individuals was not permitted to become unsocial, but was adjusted and harmonized under the intelligent control of the government which never failed on need to descend into the arena in order to remind the individual atoms of their subordination to the whole. The principle of social control inherent in the German state celebrated its most famous triumph in connection with the problems of the workingman. Wherever in the world the new industrialism flourished, there was a tendency for great masses of men to be crowded into unhealthy slums and tenements within reach of the smoke-belching factories, to which they were tied for a living. Illness, unemployment, under-nourishment, mutilation, and violent death were some of the more glaring evils to which they were exposed. Individualist countries, like the United States, were inclined to leave the situation to agreement between those immediately concerned, to employers and employed, but it was not in accordance with the German idea for the state to stand aside in a matter of such supreme concern to the whole community. Accordingly, in 1881, Bismarck came forward with a comprehensive plan for giving the workingmen pro- tection against some of the worst evils of their lot. He drew up the compulsory Insurance Laws and sue- 172 The Making of Modern Germany ceeded in having them passed by the Reichstag. The Insurance Laws are three in number, insurance against accident, insurance against illness, and insurance against invalidism and old age. They benefit the whole work- ing population, the money required to apply them being assessed upon the employers, the workmen themselves, and the state. The annual sum paid out to the beneficiaries of the system has steadily increased until the amount expended at present in a single year falls not far short of $200,000,000, a figure which is not much behind the annual expenditure for the army and navy taken to- gether.* As the bulk of the money comes from the employers and the state, which two agencies contribute considerably more than the workingmen themselves, the tidy sum just mentioned mainly represents additional wages distributed among the laborers and charged upon the industry and the public. Here was pioneer work in labor legislation which brought much honor to Germany and to the great chan- cellor who framed it. The Englishman Dawson, who has made a very sympathetic study of the insurance system, does not hesitate to call its author the leading social reformer of the nineteenth century, and another Briton, the well-known Liberal minister, David Lloyd George, was moved to pay it the subtlest of all compliments, the compliment of imitation. Since the beginning of the twentieth century the Bismarckian * In addition, a reserve fund of $500,000,000 has been accumulated which is invested in hospitals, sanatoriums, public baths, asylums for the blind, dwellings for workmen, etc. Robinson and Beard, Readings in Modern European History, Ginn & Co., Vol. II, 192. Germany since Unification 173 Insurance Laws, modified to meet local conditions, have become the keystone of British labor legislation. But a disappointment was in store for Bismarck of which we must take account if we would appreciate one of the gravest problems of present-day Germany. The chancellor's initiative in the insurance legislation sprang not from theoretic considerations — he was too much of a realist for that — but from an actual labor situa- tion, of which the main feature was that the proletariat, steadily growing in numbers and in misery, was becom- ing more and more alienated from the existing state and society and more and more attached to the revolu- tionary doctrine known as Socialism. Socialism was really of French origin, but in the period of German unification a German by the name of Karl Marx gave it a more precise and intelligible form, and succeeded in establishing a political party to help hasten the day of its triumph. Devoted men preached the doctrine to the workers in the mills and soon made proselytes by the scores and hundreds. What they declared was, in substance, that capitalist control of industry must cease and that the community must take over the means of production to the end that every man may secure a just share in the total product of labor. This revolutionary preachment alarmed the propertied classes and so seriously threatened the state that Bis- marck was largely prompted thereby to inaugurate his insurance legislation. I am not denying that he was moved by the charitable wish of granting additional economic benefits to the wronged workingmen, but I also insist that he was stirred, in an at least 174 The Making of Modern Germany equal degree, by the hope of reattaching them to the existing order. In view of these diverse motives behind the Insur- ance Laws it behooves us not to rest content with noting the added wages distributed among the laborers but also to inquire how far Bismarck succeeded in persuad- ing them to stop their ears against the siren call of Socialism. And here we must report an almost com- plete failure. While the workers eagerly took the financial benefits, they utterly refused to surrender their socialist faith. The revolutionary propaganda contin- ued among them exactly as before, with the final result that the socialist party has uninterruptedly grown, poll- ing at the last Reichstag election of 1912 the grand total of three and a half million votes. This is more than twice the vote of any other party and not far from half of all the votes cast. The alienation of the socialists from the existing state and society is not however so thorough-going as their votes and their speeches would lead one to suspect. More telling than speeches are deeds, and when in the summer of 1914 the great war burst upon Europe, the German socialists rallied to the defense of the country with no less fervor apparently than the classes to which they were opposed. In the face of a common danger Germany again proved itself, as in 1870, to be a single national unit; but the solidarity exhibited in the war should not blind us to the fact that a serious inner divi- sion exists which will reappear the moment the war is over. While occupying himself with the many domestic Germany since Unification 175 problems of Germany, Bismarck did not neglect the department of foreign affairs. In his eyes Germany, brought to unity and completion by the war of 1870, needed nothing but security in order to achieve a bril- liant, peaceful development. While the strong power which had suddenly arisen In the heart of Europe was not particularly welcome in any quarter, there was only one neighbor who looked upon it with settled aversion — France. Bismarck was fully aware of French opinion and resolved to provide against it, first, by isolating France as far as possible; and, second, by so strengthening his own country with alliances that France would see the hopelessness of renewing the struggle for Alsace-Lor- raine. To this end, in the years immediately after 1871, he cultivated intimate relations with his two eastern neighbors, Russia and Austria. With both these powers on the German side France was diplo- matically checkmated. But, to Bismarck's deep regret, the bonds uniting Berlin with Vienna and St. Petersburg soon snapped; for, though Russia and Austria might be brought together by Bismarck's friendly mediation, they could not be kept joined as soon as it appeared that they entertained violently opposed ambitions on the Balkan peninsula. Southeastern Europe had been the apple of discord between Hapsburg and Romanoff since the decline of Turkey in the seventeenth century, and with an occa- sional brief lull has remained so to our own day. In fact we are now aware that it was this particular rivalry which ignited the world conflagration of 1914. 176 The Making of Modern Germany In the year 1876, just as Bismarck's arrangements for a league embracing Germany, Russia, and Austria seemed to have been clinched, a Balkan crisis inter- vened which, in spite of all the masterful statesman could do, got out of hand and led to a war between Russia and Turkey. Austria, naturally enough in the light of her traditions, declared for Turkey, and in the Congress of Berlin, held in 1878 for the purpose of settling Balkan affairs, Austrian influence was strongly enlisted against Russia. Accordingly, against his wish and judgment, Bismarck was obliged to make a choice between the former friends and present enemies, and cast his vote for Austria. His calculation seems to have been that if Russia persisted in her forward policy in the Balkan peninsula, the existence of Austria would be imperilled and that the decline of Austria would prove a danger to Germany itself. Having the courage of his convictions he signed with Austria in 1879 a treaty of alliance. It was undoubt- edly directed against Russian designs, but Bismarck, who had a fundamental belief in the necessity of remain- ing friends with Russia for the purpose — if there were no other — of keeping Russia from joining hands with France, succeeded in convincing the Czar that the Austro-German alliance was purely defensive. The result was that Russia and Germany did not become incurably estranged in 1879 or for more than a decade later. Though always fearing that France and Russia might discover the advantage of forming an alliance in order to counteract the Austro-German treaty, Bis- marck's extraordinary diplomatic skill succeeded in Germany since Unification 177 keeping them from committing themselves to a formal contract as long as he retained the chancellorship. Meanwhile, always on the qui-vive to strengthen the position of Germany against its one implacable foe to the west, he succeeded in drawing Italy into the Austro- German union. Needless to say, he would hardly have scored this triumph without a number of circumstances which came to his aid. In the year 1881 France sud- denly descended on Tunis and took it, thereby gravely affronting Italy which had been nursing the secret hope of making Tunis a colony of its own. The Italian government, angered by an act of apparently wanton aggression, applied to Berlin for support, and in 1882 was formally admitted to the Austro-German partner- ship. In this way was born the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy, an alliance which continued unin- terruptedly in force until it was broken in May, 1915, by the developments of the present war. Because it crumbled under an extraordinary strain we are probably now inclined to set small store by it, but that would be a mistake since for the thirty-three years it held it was a weighty factor in the diplomacy of Europe and, above all, from the point of view of German affairs, successfully strengthened the hand of Germany against France. These swiftly sketched developments present the picture of Germany in the council of European nations to the very end of Bismarck's term of office. In March, 1890, he took his departure from a post which he had held for twenty-eight years and which he had utilized 178 The Making of Modern Germany to bring about the most epoch-making changes in the fatherland. At that moment the position of Germany was so secure as to be beyond the possibility of over- throw, for, while the hostility of France had not abated, the Triple Alliance of the central powers rendered France harmless, and the Russian bear, although emit- ting an occasional growl from his northern lair, was yet far from planning a mortal combat. But why did Bismarck leave office in the year 1890? The answer to this question introduces us to the per- sonality of William II, who became king of Prussia and German emperor in 1888 by virtue of the death in that year of his grandfather, William I, at the vener- able age of ninety-one, and of his father, the Emperor Frederick, who died after a reign of a little more than three months. William II, who was only twenty-nine years old when he mounted the throne, immediately showed that he had an impetuous disposition, consonant with his years, but also that he possessed a good natural intelligence joined to the firm will to be a genuine leader of his people. For two years after his accession he retained Bis- marck in office, often taking the occasion to profess a great reverence for the maker of Germany; but gradu- ally differences of opinion developed, and in March, 1890, the hot young sovereign abruptly dismissed his famous minister. The details of the crisis have never been divulged but, given two head-strong men of opposed temperament, separated in years and in experi- ence by the space of half a century, and it is safe to assume that they will quarrel. Germany since Unification 179 In view of the fact that the German Empire was Bismarck's handiwork, his dismissal caused an immense stir throughout the world, and Cassandra voices were raised here and there prophesying that his structure was artificial and would fall with him. Such forecasts were quickly refuted by the events, for a national devel- opment now set in that carried Germany forward in the race of life at an accelerated pace and soon led many observers to declare that the age of William II did not yield in brilliance to the age of Bismarck. In spite of its air of exaggeration, there is a certain justification about such a statement, although we are not permitted to deduce therefrom that William II is anything like the same overtowering personality as the Iron Chancellor. The new German emperor has proved himself a complex character. If, as already said, he was well-intentioned and energetic, more nota- ble still was the fact that he was enthusiastically and constructively modern. It is true he often talked in language suggestive of a buried past, of his sovereign rights, and prayed to a God who — terrible to think — looked for all the world like an enlarged Protestant pastor, but these were idiosyncrasies which did not in the least interfere with the recognition that he was liv- ing in an age which was being transformed by science, machinery, and organization, and that he could perform a unique service by helping to establish these various means of progress in his country. The laboratories of the inventors and investigators, the agricultural experiment stations, the great industrial enterprises on the Rhine and in Silesia, not to mention the schools, 180 The Making of Modern Germany hospitals, and welfare establishments in every city in the land, became objects of his zeal, while every project that even remotely promised a betterment of the ma- terial and moral condition of his people was sure to elicit his encouragement. The eagerness and ubiquity which he displayed caused him to be laughed at, at first, even in his own country as a sort of traveling charlatan; then, as the effects of his stimulation made themselves felt, opinion swung to the opposite extreme and awed voices were heard which ascribed the least sign of unusual activity in Germany to the imperial initiative and by implication reduced the share of the German people in their own achievements to little better than zero. It goes without saying that here as always the truth is a golden mean, and that while conceding to William a really remarkable gift for arousing sleeping ener- gies to life, we would be shooting wide of the mark if we did not do justice to the part taken by the people themselves in their recent expansion. We may profit- ably recall at this point the peculiar character of the German state in which, as we have seen, authoritative leadership is combined with free popular activity. William II has proved on the whole an excellent executive after the German pattern, but his direction would without doubt have amounted to a blight rather than a help, if it had not been exercised in healthy inter- action with the million-fold, coordinated labor-offering of his subjects. Once again I submit, it is wiser for the convinced individualists of other countries to try to understand the collectivist system of Germany than Germany since Unification 181 to scorn it as unworthy of attention. There is neither a moral nor an intellectual excuse for speaking con- temptuously of the German people as an obedient flock of sheep under an autocratic shepherd; and even a declared enemy, like Lord Northcliffe, owner of the London Times and leader of the English press, is not doing his country any real service by sinking to the vituperative level of a recent public letter, wherein he speaks of the Germans as " second-rate imitators," and " a nation of house-servants." * I have now prepared the ground for an open-minded consideration of the German achievements in the reign of William n. And just as only exaggeration and mis- understanding will lay them to the emperor's door, so only willful ignorance will speak of them as a sudden mushroom 'growth. Take German science, for example. Does science, by which I mean the deliberate conquest of Nature through the devoted study of her processes, show anywhere in Europe a more steady and cumulative expansion? True, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, German science, though not negligible, lagged behind that of France and England; but one hundred years ago, in the days of Napoleon, it took its place by the side of its rivals, and in the last decades has in many particulars led the van; for example, in the fields of chemistry and experimental medicine. To pick out almost at hazard a few medical names: Dr. Behring, who gave the world the diphtheria serum, Dr. Koch, the discoverer of the tuberculosis and cholera bacilli, and Dr. Ehrlich, whose Salvarsan promises to •Published in the Chicago Tribune, July 29, 1915. 182 The Making of Modern Germany end the ravages of syphilis, are among the great bene- factors of our age. But chemistry, in its two depart- ments of experimental and applied chemistry, best illus- trates the constructive benefits of German science. What the experimental chemist discovers in the labora- tory, the applied chemist turns to account in the indus- trial life of the nation. Thus the work of Liebig, touching the composition of foods and their relation to the soil, was tirelessly utilized by scores of hands until the ancient art of agriculture was revolutionized. The German farmers on being told what elements were necessary for every article they grew began to use artificial fertilizers in ever increasing amounts until their annual expenditures on this item exceeded that of any other nation. Result: Germany, occupying an area not quite so large as Texas, much of it soil that a farmer in the United States would regard as beneath his notice, produces sufficient food for sixty-seven mil- lion people. Without this achievement, an achievement of chemistry, she would long ago have been starved out in the present war. Let us look a little farther into the triumphs of the chemical laboratory. One of the most important agri- cultural fertilizers is saltpeter, which owes an added significance to the fact that it is necessary in the manu- facture of ammunition. Germany has been in the habit of importing it in immense quantities from Chili. Only recently German chemists have perfected a process for extracting it, or rather its nitrogen ingredient, from the atmosphere, thus enabling their countrymen to tap an inexhaustible supply of this element at home. Artificial Germany since Unification 183 rubber, in the absence of the real article cut off by the war, now serves to produce German tires, and a cheap substitute for gasoline, partly derived from potatoes, drives the German automobiles. But the greatest mir- acle has been wrought with coal which is made to yield, in addition to coke, its fuel element, various pharmaceu- tical preparations such as asperin, phenacetin, and sac- charin; and, above all, the precious anilin dyes. The development of these has become a German specialty to such a degree that all the nations of the world pay tribute to Germany for the coloring substances needed by their textile mills. But dip into other departments of modern activity and similar results appear. In the production of iron and steel Germany in the twentieth century completely outstripped her rival, Great Britain,* while in the man- ufacture of electrical apparatus she stands facile prln- ceps among the powers of Europe. In the invention of new machinery she has at least maintained a conspicu- ous place, as the name of Dr. Diesel, whose motor solves one of the greatest engineering problems of our time, may serve to prove. Not to make myself a plague with heaped up facts and figures, I conclude by pointing to the amazing growth of German foreign trade. Since 1870 the fig- ures have risen from one billion to five billion dollars; that is, German foreign trade has multiplied five times. * The total iron output of Germany in 1912 was about twice as large as that of Great Britain. The respective figures are nine and eighteen million tons. Binz, Die Chemische Industrie and der Krieg. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalr, Stuttgart. 184 The Making of Modern Germany In the same period British foreign trade has done well too, for it has increased from two billions of dollars to five and a half billions, but compared with the rush of German trade it shows a far more deliberate move- ment of advance. Before leaving the economic field, permit me to say a word as to the vital significance of these various statistical statements, which, taken by themselves, are about as palpitating as the multiplication table. Reflec- tion will show that they spell economic organization, an organization which is in last analysis no more than the industrial equivalent of the political organization already examined. Exactly as in the case of the govern- ment, German economic enterprise recognizes the neces- sity of leadership; it believes in expert advice, which it gets by allying itself with the scientist; and it keeps the benefit of the whole before its eyes by submitting to regu- lation in the interest of the consuming public and to the special taxation of the Insurance Laws in the interest of the workingmen. The control of production and exchange by the state, often in minute detail, has perhaps aroused the aston- ishment of Americans more than any other feature. In our individualist eyes state interference is ruinous, and scores of learned professors of political economy and hundreds of capitalist newspaper editors have pro- claimed with far-sounding eloquence that government abstention is the very palladium of our liberties. And yet the opposite of ruin has been wrought in Germany, because state interference has, in the main, been honest, intelligent, and directed by the high social purpose of Germany since Unification 185 keeping a group of rich trust magnates and their mid- dle-class dependents from appropriating to their exclu- sive benefit the profits of the nation's industry. And, note well, interference has not concerned itself one-sidedly with the employing class. The vast army of workers has been " interfered " with by industrial courts for the trial of cases arising between employers and employed; * by government employment bureaus instituted to reduce the evil of .non-employment; and, above all, by an excellent body of technical and com- mercial schools in the industrial towns. Even in our country we do not scruple to " interfere " with the rights of the individual when it comes to education, but Germany, which, like ourselves, compels school attend- ance only to the fourteenth year, has recently prepared the way for a momentous forward step. Why stop educating at fourteen, was the question raised by school authorities, before the boy and girl have been sup- plied with the equipment necessary to cope with the modern world? Why should not the state extend a helping hand to its youth to the eighteenth year and send it forth into life in possession of definite industrial or commercial training? To this end Fortbildungs- schulen, continuation schools, have been established in increasing numbers. Before long we may expect a law making the con- tinuation system general and obligatory through the * These courts are over 400 in number, handle about 100,000 cases a year, and settle the majority of cases in a few minutes' time with prac- tically no expense to the litigants. They are properly courts of arbitra- tion only, from which appeal may be made to the regular courts. That step is hardly ever taken. Dawson, The German Workman, p. 186 The Making of Modern Germany land.* Even though much remains to be done, these newest schools with their vocational features afford another illustration of the thoroughness of German organization which neglects no factor of success, neither capital nor labor nor science nor education, and cher- ishes as its ideal the simultaneous forward movement of the whole nation. f Even uncompromising American critics of the Ger- man system have often praised the success obtained by Germany in the government of her cities. This is really very illogical on their part, since German municipal government is absolutely of a piece with government in general ; however, the Teutonic success in this depart- ment has been so conspicuous in comparison with our failure that the verbal admission was unavoidable. But what are the leading features of the German system? Let us consider them briefly since they must needs open another avenue of understanding to German life. We are all aware, we are even painfully oppressed by the fact that modern conditions have enormously enlarged the towns and increased their problems. There are the problems of public service including water, gas, sewage, electricity, and transportation, the * " Attendance at continuation schools is now compulsory in twenty- two out of twenty-six German states." Cyclopedia of Education, ed. by Paul Monroe, The Macmillan Company. Article " Industrial Educa- tion." t A good deal of additional educational effort is expended by private societies, notably the Social-Democratic parry. For a brief review see Muthesius, Das Bildungsiuesen im neuen Deutschland. (Deutsche Ver- lags-Anstalt..) The author speaks with justifiable pride of " the demo- cratization of knowledge " in modern Germany. He also points out shortcomings, and makes interesting suggestions as to improvements. Germany since Unification 187 problems of public health involving diseases, hospitals, and food-inspection, the problems of tenements, slums, parks and playgrounds — in a word, the infinitely mul- tiplied problems of present-day community housekeep- ing. Now it is certain that all these problems are immediate practical issues, that they interest all resi- dents of a town alike, and that fundamentally they have nothing to do with national party programs, that is, with what we currently call politics. They can in consequence be most effectively met by a vigorous local authority proceeding under expert advice — the famil- iar German system already observed in state and indus- try ! In its application to the town the system often shows local variation, but, generally speaking, it exhibits as the controlling factor an expert mayor with a cabi- net of experts making up together the executive, the so-called Magistral. A German mayor is an out-and-out professional, like a lawyer or a physician; he has specialized in general administration from his college days, has begun his career in a small municipal post, and has looked forward to becoming mayor somewhere or other as the crown of a life of labor. Together with his cabinet of depart- mental heads he is appointed by the town council which in its turn is elected by the voters and exercises a gen- eral supervision, above all, in financial matters to see to it that the experts keep close to the earth and are not ridden to death by their respective hobbies. The pre- vailing custom is to let the Magistral handle the city affairs with a minimum of restraint from the city coun- cil, thus encouraging initiative and enterprise. To 188 The Making of Modern Germany serve on the town council is an honor but not a pecuniary advantage, since, besides drawing no pay, the members, in consequence of their aloofness from the actual details of government, have no jobs to distribute among friends and relatives. Their main business, when all is said, is to keep the Magistral in touch with public opinion. In the search for its paid officials a town is willing to go far afield, literally advertising for mayor, engineers, and the other members of the Magistral and giving the posts to the most experienced and promising indi- viduals presenting themselves as candidates. That under this absolutely business-like system Ger- many has clean, well-lighted streets and excellent pub- lic utilities, that she has abolished the slums and removed the worst features of industrial congestion, that business and residence sections, parks and play- grounds, have been articulated into a town-unit meet- ing the demands of usefulness and beauty need cause no particular surprise. A less expected merit of the system is that it has avoided routine and shown a remarkable openness to new ideas. The German towns, for example, and so far as I know they alone, have taken up a comprehensive land purchase policy by which they are acquiring more and more of the area within their administrative district and often considerable areas outside. In this way they provide for future growth, limit private speculation in land values, secure forest and recreation grounds for the inhabitants, and add to their revenues by appropri- ating the unearned increment. By the unearned incre- ment, a term much bandied by political economists, is Germany since Unification 189 meant the increased value of land resulting automatic- ally from the growth of population. There can be no question that in justice the automatic increase, to which the individual has not contributed by his labor, should go to the community itself; how- ever, under the regime generally prevailing it goes to the individual owners who literally grow rich while they sleep.* German towns have energetically attacked the evil by going into the real estate market and buying property right and left. Freiburg (in Baden) already owns seventy-seven per cent of its administrative area (exclusive of streets), Stettin owns sixty-two per cent, Munich, Cologne, Wiesbaden between thirty and forty per cent, and so on down the list. The policy is not without its problems and it would be absurd to recom- mend the system for imitation elsewhere, but it is worth pondering that all progressive German towns are per- suaded that the ownership of a large part of their area and of the circumambient region is indispensable, and that by means of the control of the real estate market they try to secure the systematic development of the town in the interest of the sum of the inhabitants. f * The great English dukes in possession of London real estate and the Astor family in New York furnish excellent examples of unearned incre- ment fortunes. t The most recent book on the subject is Dawson's, Municipal Life and Government in Germany, Longmans, Green, & Co., 1914. The opinion of Dawson, an Englishman, may be gathered from the following excerpts from the preface: "Impressed by the larger autonomy enjoyed by the German towns, I have even dared to ask the question whether in this country [England] — the proverbial home of free institutions — we yet really understand what true self-government means." And again: " Their [the German] institutions of the professional and salaried mayor and aldermen represent the highest and most efficient development of municipal organization reached in any country." 190 The Making of Modern Germany But it is time to take up the diplomatic develop- ment under William II, and therewith broach the story of the rivalries among the European powers which led to the present war. We left Germany at the time of Bismarck's dismissal in 1890 in a very favorable situa- tion. Her unalterable enemy was France, but she was amply fortified against the possible action of France by means of the Triple Alliance of the central powers. During the time the Triple Alliance was hatched France, anxious though she was to fortify her position, had not succeeded in drawing any state into an alliance with herself. Undeniably she was isolated. Now Bismarck had no sooner disappeared from the scene than the French situation was improved by the magnetic drawing together of France and Russia. In view of the alignment of the central states it was quite the natural thing for them to do, and it is difficult to see how even Bismarck could have hindered a rap- prochement in the long run. In any case, in 1892, the Latin and Slav powers joined hands across the width of Germany and from that moment steadily perfected their Dual Alliance as a counter-weight to the partner- ship of Germany, Austria, and Italy. With the continent thus split in two, each group naturally became desirous of enlisting Great Britain on its side. But Great Britain at first remained dis- creetly aloof, preferring not to be drawn into the quar- rels of the mainland and content with the enormous political and economic rewards resulting from her com- plete supremacy over the ocean highways. This supremacy she was resolved to maintain as her historical Germany since Unification 191 right by means of an invincible fleet, and all the interest she showed in the continent sprang exclusively from the occasional alarm she felt lest one or another of the European powers was venturing to look beyond the bars of its continental prison to the wide domain beyond, which Great Britain had marked for its own. It is important to observe that the experience accum- ulated during the eighteenth and early nineteenth cen- tury inclined the British public to see in France and Russia the most eager aspirants to extra-European ter- ritory, and that friction with them, occasioned by movements on their part of national expansion, flared up from time to time well to the end of the last century. Then suddenly the situation changed. By the year 1900 the forward movement of Germany had reached a sufficient development to attract British attention. German trade was making its rivalry felt in all the markets of the world, a German merchant-marine was dispatching its ships into all ports and waters, Germany was making a bid for trans-oceanic colonies, even scor- ing a few modest successes in Africa and the islands of the Pacific, and, finally and most important of all, she aspired to become a sea-power by building a fleet. Beginning with the twentieth century the British pub- lic with a perfectly correct instinct sensed in the rising power across the North Sea an ocean rival potentially far more dangerous than either France or Russia, and as soon as this conviction became general, it wisely led to an adjustment of the outstanding claims with the older rivals in order to leave the country free to con- centrate attention upon the newer peril. Edward VII, 192 The Making of Modern Germany who had mounted the throne at the beginning of the twentieth century, may claim the merit of having inaug- urated the diplomatic action made necessary by the reinterpretation of English interests. In spite of the English theory to the effect that as king he was a purely ornamental feature of the constitution, he succeeded, by virtue of a remarkable tact, in arousing no objection to his playing the part of an unofficial foreign minister. Largely through his influence a treaty was signed with France in 1904 by means of which certain dis- putes, having chiefly to do with French and British ambitions in the Mediterranean sea, were compromised. The reward of France was Morocco, a sovereign and independent state, be it observed, which, before the rise of the German danger, Great Britain had jealously withheld from French control. Mutual satisfaction with a partnership thus auspiciously begun led inevitably to still closer relations, and presently England and France agreed to assume obligations which, without the name, effectively made them allies. Thereupon Great Britain turned to Russia. The questions between these two powers were more serious, involving Turkey, India, and China, and had repeatedly, as late as the second half of the nineteenth century, led to the verge of vio- lence. Once the verge was passed and the Crimean war (1854-56) followed. Of course issues embracing the whole of Asia could not be settled at a moment's notice, but a beginning could be made, as an earnest of good will, and accord- ingly the British cabinet tempted Petersburg with the peace-offering of northern Persia. By expressly reserv- Germany since Unification 193 ing to itself the southern part of Persia bordering on the Persian gulf it did not unduly sacrifice British inter- ests. This Persian treaty, signed in 1907, cleared the way for further intimacy. To all intents and purposes Great Britain became a sort of silent partner in the Dual Alliance of France and Russia, thus converting it into what is popularly known as the Triple Entente. From now on the tension in Europe was tremendous and the alarms never ceased. Triple Alliance and Triple Entente stood face to face like armed and ready duellists measuring each other with watchful eyes. Though they still exchanged polite words, they were prepared at any moment to end debate and fall to. Of course it is true that if men were not the creatures they are, if, for instance, they cared more for spiritual val- ues than for the acres of the earth and the increase thereof, the quarrels between the groups and the vari- ous members of the groups could have been adjusted. But, accepting men for what they are, it is the barest nonsense to say, as kindly but mistaken people have been saying with afflicting insistence, that the nations themselves have no real quarrel with one another, and that the war has come solely in consequence of the secret plotting of the foreign offices supplemented by the blood-lust of a few diabolical autocrats. Calmly directing our attention to the actualities of the European situation, we will discover that, in the score or two of years preceding the present war, ques- tions of lands, commerce, lines of expansion, and control of small or backward nations had arisen, with regard to which the European peoples themselves, or the 194 The Making of Modern Germany commercial classes which everywhere supplied the watch-words, substantially dictated the policy of their governments. If a popular policy is the desirable policy for a government to pursue, and if by a popular policy we mean one endorsed, or apparently endorsed, by the bulk of the public, then the current denunciation of the official policies of the European states, on the alleged ground that they were not in accord with the popular will, is uncalled for. Take the issue between France and Germany; will anybody seriously maintain that it was artificially kept alive by the dark and villainous plotting of the Wilhelmsstrasse or the Quai d'Orsay? Was the rivalry of Austria and Russia in the Balkans a monarch- ical fiction? And did the Russian people, for instance, as individuals and a nation, have no interest in the movement aiming at the control of Constantinople? Was it only Sir Edward Grey and not the British peo- ple, who was interested in the Einkreisung, the envelop- ment of Germany, in order that the very profitable British sea-supremacy might be indefinitely prolonged? And, finally, was it the Kaiser only, and not the German people, who wished to get the full benefit of the national expansion and showed a growing impatience over that feature of the policy of the Entente which aimed at excluding Germany from the partition of the earth among the European powers? That partition has been steadily going on in spite of all the humanitarians have urged against it and still urge. I do not here raise the question whether it is good or bad, I content myself with the fact. The fig- ures even show that the appropriation of the earth by Germany since Unification 195 the favored nations has never been more frenzied than in the last generation, but they also show that whereas Great Britain acquired in the period 1890 to 1910 nearly two million square miles, Russia almost as much, and France six to eight hundred thousand — a total of over four million for the Entente powers — Germany added only the inappreciable figure of two thousand square miles to her territory. The figures indubitably show where the control of the earth's sur- face in recent times has lain and in whose interest it was exercised.* Although I have been arguing that the rivalries of the European nations which led to the great war were national rivalries, I am not unaware that I lay myself open to criticism unless I meet certain apparent facts. For instance, we are credibly informed that millions * On these figures see Appendix E. A brief narrative of German colonial expansion throws further startling light on the above facts and figures. The German colonial movement did not begin until 1884. I* met with so little opposition on the part of other powers that by 1890, when the Anglo-German convention relative to Africa was signed, Germany had acquired practically all the colonies that ever fell to her lot: Kamerun, Togo, German Southwest Africa, German East Africa, New Guinea. In 1890 Great Britain was still so far from seeing a rival in Germany that she made over to her the island of Helgoland in return for concessions in Africa. It was this exchange that caused the amused remark of the explorer Stanley that Germany gave a suit and got a button in return. True, when in the war of 1914, the button turned out to be a battery, the British satisfaction perceptibly diminished. However, the point I wish to make is that in 1890 the relations between Great Britain and Germany were very friendly. Then in the nineties, in consequence of the German commercial expansion, Great Britain began to scent danger, turned gradually to France and Russia, and the result was that the colonial door was shut on Germany with a bang. From 1890 on, Germany's colonial additions were inconsiderable and she consistently met a flaming sword whenever she let fall an eye of desire on lands beyond her shores. 196 The Making of Modern Germany of workmen, peasants, peace-advocates, and women of all classes, representing in their totality perhaps a majority of the people, are in all the countries opposed to the present war; further, we may safely assume that, before the war broke out, these same groups had little knowledge of their government's expansion policy and no sympathy with it so far as it was known. However, even though these facts be admitted, they lose much of their importance through the circumstance that the peace elements were at best only partially organized, and in no case controlled public opinion. That subtle directive influence in national affairs ema- nated and emanates, as matters stand in Europe, from the commercial and professional groups located in the urban centers. With variations due to one cause or another, the leading countries have a middle class, capitalist regime. While dealing, as I do, with Germany, I can not be expected to unroll the whole evolution of modern society. I am obliged to assume and have indeed assumed throughout this lecture that the economic de- velopment which gave birth to modern capitalism and brought it political mastery is known and accepted. In the interpretation, which, though I thrust it on no one, underlies this whole exposition, capitalism together with its middle-class following exercises control in the leading modern countries and is responsible for the opinion which, called public, is in its origin nothing but the opinion of a group. The majority — the working- men, peasants, and other elements just mentioned — have thus far at least docilely accepted the opinion and Germany since Unification 197 rule prepared for them, and so long as this submissive attitude continues, an expansion policy however visibly provided with the bourgeois and capitalist earmark, may be fairly described as national. With the modification conceded by this interpreta- tion of the social and political situation in the European states, I reiterate the conclusion that the nations them- selves, set on material advantages as much as they have ever been since the beginning of the world, have egged on their governments; and although it is true the gov- ernments hesitated deliberately to declare for war, they took so uncompromising a stand on the platform of national selfishness that war was bound to follow as a matter of course. Since 1900, and more particularly since 1907, " the coming war" has been talked of in Europe as one talks of the weather; that is, it has been the inexhaustible, recurrent theme, and sudden crises — the Morocco crisis, the Bosnian crisis, the Albanian crisis and so forth — all but drew the dread specter across the threshold half a score of times. In view of these circumstances it is absurd to declare that one or another of the powers was not prepared; in the essential sense of mental preparation they had all gone as far as it was possible to go, for they had accustomed themselves to look upon war as the ultimate appeal and had over and over again uncovered it as a threat. Of course the governments continued to make sonorous public professions of peace, but at the same time, and this alone was essential, they asked for increased credits for the army and navy and solemnly declared they would never betray the sacred trust 198 The Making of Modern Germany imposed on them of defending the legitimate interests of the nation. Such words, spoken from the platforms of the respective parliaments, awakened patriotic dem- onstrations throughout the country. This was the last straw — the growing disposition of all the peoples to envisage the horror and to forget over the waxing national rancors the more generous sentiments inspired by a common civilization.* While admitting that the diplomats and foreign offices might have exercised a more effective leader- ship, above all, admitting that it is regrettable that this class with such store of human treasure placed in its safe-keeping, should not have worked consistently for peace, I can not persuade myself to look for the cause of the war elsewhere than in the competition of the European nations, under the prevailing regime of capi- tal, for lands, commerce, and power, in a word, for a * In the course of this first year of the war there has been so much solemn profession of unpreparedness, especially on the part of the Entente group, that I wish I could quote freely from the numerous data at my disposal serving to prove my contrary opinion. No European government would have the face to represent itself as surprised by the war if it did not reckon, and reckon correctly, with the astonishing for- getfulness of the public. I have space only for a little evidence concern- ing Russia. In March and again in June of 1914 the St. Petersburg Birzheviya Fiedomosti (Bourse Gazette), published authorized inter- views with the Russian minister of war, Suchomlinov, wherein he described with extraordinary frankness the Russian military situation. The articles were, in substance, a paean : Russia is ready, so completely ready that in " the coming war " she will adopt not defensive but offens- ive tactics. " Russia and France desire no war, but Russia is prepared and hopes that France will also be prepared." Remember the speaker was minister of war! He added that arrangements have been made by which the Russian standing army, exclusive of Reserves and Landwehr, will be brought to 2,300,000 men, and concluded significantly: " the«e figures require no commentary." Germany since Unification 199 material good which in the minds of all has never ceased to constitute the end of life. If the philosophers and poets should ever succeed in persuading people to ex- change their old minds for new ones, we may hope to achieve an era of peace and good will; but until then the historian will do well to deal with the minds as they historically reveal themselves and, so proceeding, he will have to deal also with war. There is nothing in the complicated diplomatic Vor- geschichte of the present war, nothing in the innumer- able White, Red, Blue, and other prismatic Papers put forth since August, 1914, as documents justificatifs by the various governments, which moves me to modify my conclusions. Naturally a close study of the situa- tion will reveal an endless number of details which I do not as much as name and which yet contributed, each its perceptible little weight, to the fateful scales on which were balanced peace and war. Take, for instance, the case of Serbia. Everybody knows that the assassination of the archduke Franz Ferdinand fol- lowed by the Austrian ultimatum to Belgrade was the immediate occasion of the war, but everybody who cares to penetrate below the surface knows, too, that the whole Serbian question is merely an episode of the larger issue as to whether Austrian or Russian influence shall prevail in the Balkan peninsula. Thus it was the long-standing Balkan rivalry between Austria and Russia that precipitated the irrepressible conflict, as some of the best observers, by the way, had often predicted it would; but, owing to the existing system of alliances and ententes, the other powers were 200 The Making of Modern Germany drawn into the vortex and with the frenzy that seizes men when they face the inevitable, they suddenly and recklessly tossed all the accumulated historic rivalries and hates into the great melting-pot of war. France and Germany once more drew swords over Alsace-Lorraine, resuming a border-struggle of a thou- sand years, while England and Germany resolved to set- tle their more recent issue over trade, colonies, and sea-power by the same primitive method — by force of arms. Doubtless Serbia remains an issue in the titanic conflict; also Belgium, Poland, Turkey and other countries have become issues, upon which the respective populations hang with breathless interest, but from the point of view of the general historian, the really capital questions are between the great powers and are three in number. The first touches the control of Southeastern Europe : shall it rest with Russia and her allies, or with Austria and those who have joined with her? This question has the most general scope, for every power, large or small, may expect booty or no-booty from the dominion of the dying Turk depending on whether or no it is on the winning side. The second question may be equally important but concerns only France and Germany and the boundary between them. The third question is between Germany and Great Britain and involves the continued British supremacy of the seas. But is this all the historian has to offer in answer to the anxious question, What is it all about? Is the riot of destruction of which we are the amazed and stricken spectators a quarrel over booty, on a different Germany since Unification 201 physical scale but on the same moral level as the tribal warfare of our distant ancestors ? The kinship between us and our savage forebears — who, looking at the substance of things, would dare to deny it? But, in spite of resemblance, there is also a difference occa- sioned by the several thousand years of effort in which we have acquired a certain control of natural forces, invented a series of astonishing tools, and perfected a remarkable social and political organization. To these varied benefits we currently refer as Prog- ress and Civilization, and hope by means of them to achieve in the future as in the past a steady improvement of our lot. At the end of the development our enam- ored fancy sketches a kind of heaven on earth, the brotherhood of man realized from pole to pole. It may be that we are wrong in our premises as well as in our expectations — the wise men of the Orient who proceed from other assumptions and find happiness not in possessions but in the vision of God have never ceased to tell us so — but however that be, our confidence is unshaken, and we await a solution of all our troubles from that mysterious agency, which we think we have somehow made unmysterious when we call it Progress or Knowledge or something equally sonorous. This universal if somewhat vague faith explains why, dissatisfied with the greeds and rancors which the war has exposed in all their terrible nakedness, each nation has attempted to justify itself to its own con- science and before the bar of public opinion, in terms of the prevailing ideal. Each is persuaded that Civil- ization is on its side and that inherent in the enemy is 202 The Making of Modern Germany something sinister and disruptive, calculated to hurt Civilization and to throw the world back into barbarism. Among the group we call the allies this conviction has swiftly crystallized into a watchword: they declare they are in this war to put an end to an uncivilized mon- ster which makes its lair in Germany and is called Mili- tarism. Sit anathema is their passionate cry. It is really an English cry which Russia and France, in lieu of a better fighting formula, have rather reluctantly adopted. But what do the allies mean by German militarism? The inquiry is decidedly worth prosecut- ing. Do they mean a standing army? Hardly; for the Russian standing army is much larger than the Ger- man, and the French is just as large, in spite of the much smaller population of the country.* Do they mean a navy always ready for war? Certainly not, since the British navy alone is about twice as large as the German. Again, total expenditure for defense can not be the decisive factor, since both Russia and Great Britain spend more on their army and navy than Ger- many.f Since therefore there is nothing peculiar about the German army in the matter of size or cost, and * The figures given by the New York Times of November 8, 1914, are as follows: Russia's army in time of peace consists (in round figures) of 1,284,000 men ; the army of France of 869,000 men ; the army of Germany of 800,000 men. The estimates given in the American Army and. Navy Journal of October 3, 1914, are: France 749,000, Germany 735,000. t The Living Age, June 14, 1914, gives the expenditures compiled from figures furnished by the British Admiralty and War Office as follows: Russia $455,000,000; Great Britain $375,000,000; Germany $350,000,000; France $280,000,000; Austria-Hungary $145,000,000. The per capita expense for 1913 is given as follows: Great Britain $8.20, France $740, Germany $5.50. Germany since Unification 203 German militarism is in these respects indistinguish- able from the Russian, French, and British variety, where does the special hideousness of German militar- ism come in? The answer is plain: it inheres unmis- takably in its superior readiness, and that is a matter of superior organization. And here, note, that while superior military readi- ness is immediately a matter of army organization, in the last analysis it is much more than that, it is a matter of organization in general — organization of industry, organization of commerce, organization of agriculture, organization of transportation, organization of any and every national interest capable of instant mobilization in the event of war. And now need I remind you, after our long effort to follow the thread of German development, that it is indeed true that Germany, beginning with Prussia, the German nucleus, has consciously labored at her national organization for a matter of two hundred years, and that she has carried it farther than any other people? The will to organize, involving trained professional leadership with democratic cooperation from every man, woman, and child, we have hit upon as the very essence of the German state and society. And by writ- ten and spoken word the teachers and preachers of the nation have performed the feat of fervently enlisting the whole people for this program. In fact it is this program which affects with its rami- fications every department of human activity and which cherishes as its ultimate end an alert, intelligent, and prosperous nation that the Germans have in mind when 204 The Making of Modern Germany they speak of their Kultur. To this simple perception has the confused discussion of this enigmatic word at last boiled down: Kultur means the national program; and when the Germans declare that in this war they are defending their Kultur, they are affirming nothing more or less than that they are dedicated heart and soul to the peculiar collectivist form of Progress and Civili- zation which their past has evolved. But that and nothing else is what the British mean by German militarism! The British, as ancient and passionate individualists, have an instinctive aversion for the German system, which on earlier occasions they have derided under such names as paternalism and bureaucracy, but which they now defy and denounce under the newer name of militarism. Regardless of the name, it is always the same familiar thing, the Ger- man organization, the German social and political sys- tem, the German Kultur. The German system, which the Germans themselves exalt as their Kultur, and the British decry as militar- ism, is thus moved into the very center of the world struggle. From the point of view of Progress and Civilization, the highest standards for judging life in which we Europeans and Americans have retained faith, this circumstance is to be welcomed, for it, and it alone, raises the war to a level above mere land-hunger and trade-hunger. In order to convey my meaning I would have you recall at this point that Progress and Civilization, as they have unfolded in the last few thousand years, have been largely concerned with social experiment. The Germany since Unification 205 finding of new forms of human association certainly takes rank in the forward movement of the race with the invention of new tools and the stealing of knowl- edge from nature's unconcern. Now in the historic succession of social forms the British individualist organization holds a notable place and has for several hundred years done splendid service. But its past rec- ord is no proof that it will not be superseded by a system better adapted to the newer needs of the time. In the opinion of many intelligent observers there are good reasons for thinking that the German system is a more advanced type of social organization than the British one, and that the war will bring conviction on this head to the whole European world. I do not mean that individualism will be abruptly abandoned — that is not the way things happen in this world of gradual change — but that it will be combined somehow with collectivism, and that from the two opposites will conie a wholly advantageous fusion and synthesis. From this political and philosophical point of view, the winning or losing of the struggle by Germany will be an entirely secondary issue. I yield to the passion to prophesy with the utmost reluctance, but I should like to point out that if I am right the war may prove a constructive event of the highest importance, for it will bring the European nations together more closely than ever be- fore on the basis of a new social purpose and a higher social organization. May I point out, in concluding, another hope to which we may cling in the darkness surging around us and from which we may draw an unshaken confidence 206 The Making of Modern Germany that the future of Europe will not be stark anarchy and ruin? That hope arises from the European man, the homo Europaeus, who through hundreds of years of a masterful struggle with nature has developed a sense of order diametrically opposed to the wastage of war. Of this European man we may unhesitatingly declare that he will not rest until he has established peace; and since the high human valor of all the national variants of the European type has been eloquently affirmed by the terrible crisis of this conflict, we may entertain the hope that they will all survive and, when the time comes, act together to lay the foundations of the new Europe. Such general, coordinated action is essential to all our thoughts about the brave little continent which from the dawn of history has filled the world with its achieve- ments, for Europe owes what it is to the presence on its diversified soil of many peoples with many kinds of endowments and to their age-long rivalry and coopera- tion. May the Europe of the future be in this respect not different from the Europe of the past! May not one people be permanently injured by this fratricidal struggle I May they all manage to survive the storm and continue to add to the diversity, the charm, and the energy of the movement of human life 1 appcnDiccs APPENDIX A THE HOHENZOLLERN RULERS FROM THE GREAT ELECTOR TO THE PRESENT DAY 1640-1688. Frederick William, margrave and elector of Brandenburg, called the Great Elector. Creates the centralized state. 1688-1713. Frederick, son of the Great Elector. Known as Frederick in among the electors of Brandenburg. Adopts in 1700 the title of King in Prussia (soon changed to King of Prussia). First of the new title, he is known from 1700 on as Frederick I. 1713-1740. Frederick William I, son of King Fred- erick i. Completes organization of the autocratic or patriarchal monarchy. 1740-1786. Frederick II, son of Frederick William I, commonly called Frederick the Great. Challenges Austria, makes Prussia a European power. 1786-1797. Frederick William n, nephew of Fred- erick the Great. Opposes the French Revolution without understanding, vigor, or success. [209] 210 The Making of Modern Germany 1797-1840, Frederick William ill, son of Frederick William II and husband of the famous Queen Louise. Defeated by Napoleon at Jena ; beneficiary of the democratiz- ing revival championed by Stein, Scharnhorst and others. 1840-1861. Frederick William iv, son of Frederick William III. " The Romanticist upon the Throne." Helplessly opposed to revolution of 1848; grants Prussian constitution of 1850. 1861-1888. William I, younger brother of Frederick William IV. Serves as regent from 1857-61. With Bismarck as prime minister defeats Austria (1866), France (1870), and becomes German Emperor (1871). 1888. March-June. Frederick ill, son of William I. 1888- William n, son of Frederick in. Promoter of German national expansion. APPENDIX B THE LIST OF STATES COMPOSING THE GERMAN EMPIRE The Statei Area in Square Milea Population December 1, 1910 (in Round Numbers) Number of Memberi in the Bundeirith Number of Repre- sentatives in the Reichstag Kingdoms (4) : 134 000 40 000 000 17 236 Bavaria 29 200 7 000 000 6 48 5,700 5,000,000 4 23 Wiirttemberg 7 500 2 500 000 4 17 Grand-duchies (6): Baden . 5 800 2 000,000 3 14 2,900 1 000 000 3 g Mecklenburg-Schwerin . . Mecklenburg-Strelitz . . . Oldenburg 5,000 1,100 2,400 600,000 100,000 500 000 2 1 1 6 1 3 Saxe-Weimar 1,300 400 000 1 3 Duchies (5): Anhalt 800 300,000 1 2 Brunswick 1,400 500,000 2 3 Saxe-Altenburg . . . . Saxe-Coburg-Gotha . . . Saxe-Meiningen . . . . Principalities (7) : Lippe . 500 700 900 400 200,000 250,000 300,000 150,000 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 Reuss, younger branch . . Keuss, older branch . . . Schaumburg-Lippe . . . Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt . Schwarzburg-Sondershausen Waldeck 100 300 100 300 300 400 75,000 150,000 50,000 100,000 90,000 60,000 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Free Cities (3): Bremen 99 300,000 1 1 Hamburg 150 1 000,000 1 3 Lubeck 100 • 100,000 1 1 Imperial Territory (1): Alsace-Lorraine . . . . 5,600 2,000,000 3 IS 208,000 65,000,000 61* 397 [211] APPENDIX C CONCERNING THE TITLE AND THE POWERS OF THE GERMAN EMPEROR AS the titles German Emperor and Emperor of Germany are often used interchangeably outside of Germany, it may be well to point out that only the title German Emperor is authorized by law and usage. The form Emperor of Germany was duly considered in 1870, but rejected as having a feudal, proprietary ring, unsuited to the supreme executive of a con- federation. The German people very generally believed in 1870 that they were reviving a title which had had currency among them at the time of their earlier medieval unity. But such was only partially the case. The head of medieval Germany originally bore the title king (Konig). But this king, in the person of the Saxon Otto, revived in 962 A. D. what he conceived to be the Roman empire, and adopted with the consent of the pope the title emperor (imperator, Caesar, Kaiser). Because of its close association with the Catholic Church the adjective holy was soon added, the revived state of the Caesars presenting itself to the world as the Holy Roman empire (sanctum imperium romanum). For several centuries the title king (referring to [212] The German Emperor 213 Germany) and emperor (referring to the empire, to which the king might or might not succeed, depending on the pleasure of the pope) were kept thoroughly dis- tinct, and the king never employed the title emperor until he had been crowned at Rome. However, begin- ning with Maximilian I (1493-1519), an innovation occurred. Maximilian called himself emperor with- out going to Rome, and from his time on the title emperor, on the ground of its superior ring, tended to become the ordinary designation of the chief of the German state, to the exclusion of the title king. The emperor even came to be called popularly the German emperor, although there was not the least legal justifi- cation for this form. I repeat : constitutional law knew only a sanctum imperium romanum, and its head the imperator. This continued to be the case till the extinc- tion of the Holy Roman empire in 1806. It follows from all this that, from the revival of the Roman empire by Otto I to the beginning of the nine- teenth century, European usage recognized only one emperor, the Roman emperor, occasionally but incor- rectly referred to as the German emperor. Now for some time before the formal end of the Holy Roman Empire, it was so plainly approaching its last gasp that no one retained any respect either for it or its empty claims. No wonder therefore that when General Napoleon Bonaparte looked about him for a suitable title, he should have seized on emperor without as much as a by your leave to the authentic but moribund owner. In 1804 Napoleon became the Emperor of the French. Thereupon the head of the house of Haps- 214 The Making of Modern Germany burg, Francis II, who was the actual Roman (German) emperor, invented a brand-new title for himself, Em- peror of Austria. Since he foresaw, and little foresight was required, the early extinction of the Roman empire and the attendant passing of his Roman title, he thought to insure himself against loss of dignity by having a second imperial title in reserve. Thus, just as the emperor perished together with his empire, two parvenu emperors, the Emperor of the French and the Emperor of Austria stepped upon the scene. The Napoleonic title did not long survive, but the title Emperor of Austria has lasted to our own day. It was supplemented in 1871 by the invention German Emperor adopted by the king of Prussia. In this new- est instance the imperial title has no more authentic association with the medieval emperor and empire than the French and Austrian titles. The most we can say is that it revives a popular German memory of great vigor and persistence. As the reader may be interested in the powers of the German emperor, I present in abbreviated form the articles of the Constitution relative thereto. IV. The Presidency: Art. 11. To the king of Prussia shall belong the presidency of the Confederation, and he shall have the title of German em- peror. It shall be the duty of the emperor to represent the empire among nations, to declare war and to conclude peace in the name of the empire, to enter into alliances and other treaties with foreign countries, to accredit ambassadors and to receive them. The German Emperor 215 For a declaration of war in the name of the empire, the con- sent of the Bundesrath is required, unless an attack is made upon the federal territory or its coasts. Art. 12. The emperor shall have the right to convene the Bundesrath and the Reichstag, and to open, adjourn, and close them. Art. 13. The Bundesrath and the Reichstag shall be con- vened annually, and the Bundesrath may be called together for the preparation of business without the Reichstag; the latter, however, shall not be convened without the Bundesrath. Art. 14. The Bundesrath shall be convened whenever a meeting is demanded by one-third of the total number of votes. Art. 15. The imperial chancellor, to be appointed by the emperor, shall preside in the Bundesrath, and supervise the conduct of its business. Art. 1 6. The necessary bills shall be laid before the Reichs- tag in the name of the emperor, in accordance with the resolu- tion of the Bundesrath, and shall be advocated in the Reichstag by members of the Bundesrath, or by special commissioners appointed by the latter. Art. 17. It shall be the duty of the emperor to prepare and publish the laws of the empire, and to supervise their execution. The decrees and ordinances of the emperor shall be issued in the name of the empire, and shall require for their validity the coun- ter-signature of the imperial chancellor, who thereby assumes the responsibility for them.* * Dodd, Modern Constitutions, Vol. I, p. 330. APPENDIX D THE SUFFRAGE PROVISIONS FOR THE REICHSTAG AND FOR THE SECOND CHAMBER OF THE PRUSSIAN PARLIAMENT (LANDTAG) TN spite of the somewhat analogous organization of •*• the United States, it has been my experience as a teacher that students do not carefully distinguish be- tween the Reichstag, the German equivalent of our national House of Representatives, and the Second Chamber of the Prussian parliament, which resembles the lower house of one of our state legislatures. While insisting on the analogy, I am of course ready to admit that the Prussian parliament, in keeping with the pre- eminence of Prussia in the German federation, exercises a much greater weight in German affairs than attaches to any state legislature in the United States. Reichstag and Prussian Second Chamber exist and operate in virtue of two different fundamental laws: the Reichstag in virtue of the German Constitution of 1867-70, the Prussian Second Chamber in virtue of the Prussian Constitution of 1850. That each has its own suffrage provisions and that these differ widely should never be forgotten. The Reichstag has universal male suffrage (see Lecture v, p. 145) and the Prussian Sec- ond Chamber the so-called three-class system (see Lec- ture IV, p. 120). A fuller statement of the two suffrage [216] Reichstag and Landtag 217 systems, affording the opportunity of comparing them at close range may be welcomed by some readers. In the interest of easy comprehension I shall quote the summary of the constitutional articles given by Lowell in his Governments and Parties in Continental Europe, rather than the elaborate original text.* THE REICHSTAG SUFFRAGE The Reichstag is elected for five years by direct universal suffrage and secret ballot. The voters must be twenty-five years old, and not in active military service, paupers, or otherwise disqualified.! THE PRUSSIAN SUFFRAGE The Prussian Second Chamber is composed of four hundred and thirty-three members elected for five years by a suffrage, which although universal is neither direct nor equal. The mem- bers are chosen in districts, each of which elects, as a rule, two deputies. The members, however, are not chosen by the people", but by electors, and for this purpose the districts are subdivided into a number of smaller divisions called Unvahlbezirke, or orig- inal electoral districts, in each of which one elector is chosen for every two hundred and fifty souls, on the following curious sys- tem. The voters are divided into three classes according to the amount of taxes they pay; the largest taxpayers who together pay one-third of the taxes forming the first class ; the next largest taxpayers paying another third of the taxes forming the second class ; and the rest of the people who pay of course the remaining third forming the third class. Each of these classes chooses separately, and by absolute majority vote, one-third of the electors to which the Urwahlbezirk is entitled. All the electors so chosen * For original text see Laband, Das Staatsrecht des Deutschen Reichs, and Altmann, Ausgpwaehlte Urkunden zur Brand. — Preuss. Verfas- sungsgeschichte. t Government and Parties in Continental Europe, i, 252. A. L. Lowell, Houghton, Mifflin Co. 218 The Making of Modern Germany in the district then meet together and elect the representative by absolute majority vote. The three class system was devised in 1849, and is a singular compromise between universal suffrage and property qualifica- tion. Under it everybody votes, and has a certain share in the direction of public affairs ; but the largest taxpayers, that is, the richest men, who are of course comparatively few in number, choose as many electors as the mass of the laborers, or to put the same thing from the opposite point of view, property . . . as well as mere numbers, are taken into account in the apportion- ment of power. The same principle is applied in the Prussian cities and villages, where the councils are divided into three equal parts, one of which is elected by each of the three classes of taxpayers** * Governments and Parties in Continental Europe, i, 308-5. APPENDIX E THE RACE FOR COLONIES HHHE figures given in Lecture vi, p. 195, relative to -•• the colonial acquisitions of Great Britain, France, Russia, and Germany, in the period 18901910 are taken from J. W. Burgess' The European War of 1914, A. C. McClurg & Co., Chapter in. With the kind assistance of my colleague, Mr. Scott, I have attempted to work out my own figures from the Statesman's Year Book, the Annual Cyclopedia, N. D. Harris' Interven- tion and Colonization in Africa, Houghton Mifflin Co., and other similar works. There is considerable diver- gence among the authorities because, for instance, pro- tectorates may or may not be counted as possessions-, and because colonies credited in a given year with a certain area may suffer enlargement or diminution through subsequent treaties. No wonder, therefore, that I can not altogether make my figures on the colonial gains between 1890 and 1910 march with those of Mr. Burgess. As to Great Britain, I arrive at essentially the same result, that is, at something over 2,000,000 square miles, but as to France, I reach, as against Mr. Burgess's 600,000 to 800,000 square miles, a total of about 2,000,000, due, without doubt, to the inclusion by my authorities of every square foot of Sahara sand. Because it is the German colonial possessions that [219] 220 The Making of Modern Germany are our particular concern, and because, further, the very small share of Germany in the partition of the world since she aroused Great Britain's displeasure may be a source of surprise to many, I shall set down in order the German acquisitions in the period 1890-1910. The year 1 890 is chosen as the point of departure owing to the fact that, after marking the achievement of a modus vivendi between Great Britain and Germany in the Anglo-German convention, it was followed by relations which grew gradually more and more strained until they led to permanent iD-temper. GERMAN ACQUISITIONS, 1890-1910 Area in sq. miles 1897. Lease of Kiauchau from China 200 1899. The Caroline, Pelew, and Marianne Islands pur- chased from Spain 560 1900, Part of the Samoan Islands (other parts assigned to Great Britain and the United States) 1000 Total 1 760 The decade 1900-1910 was, as far as I can make out, absolutely unproductive for Germany. However, it was not free from colonial conflicts as the long tension over Morocco sufficiently shows. In the Morocco quar- rel the Triple Entente prevailed and France got the African sultanate, but not without being obliged to make a concession to Germany. In 1911 the latter received territory in central Africa, swamp and jungle belong- ing to the French Congo, of about 100,000 square miles. The value of the grant was very questionable, but the The Race for Colonies 221 event released some German rejoicing as marking the end of a long period of emptiness and dearth. If the 100,000 square miles of the year 1911 be added to the 1,760 square miles of the period 1890-1910 and the quarter of a century from the Anglo-German conven- tion of 1890 to the outbreak of the war in 1914 be taken into account, the German figures make a more favorable showing than appears from Mr. Burgess's statement. However, even so it is plain that Germany was struck with a sort of colonial paralysis about 1890, and was left far behind in the race by the three for- tunate and cooperating members of the Entente. APPENDIX F THE POLISH QUESTION AS there exists in present-day Germany and has long existed a Polish question, it is proper to offer some account of it, even though I found no room for this important issue in the body of the lectures. For the student of German history the Polish ques- tion is as old as the migrations which marked the end of Rome, for when the fluid ethnic situation began at last to assume a certain fixity, it was found that the Germans had as their neighbors on the east a belt of Slav peoples, chief among whom were the Poles. The passionate rivalry of Slavs and Germans throughout the Middle Ages, the interminable pushing of both the language and state boundaries to and fro, according to the alternation of victory and defeat, I am obliged to pass over in silence, and shall begin with the situation as it was at the time of the founding of the Prussian state by the Great Elector. We have seen that the Great Elector was moved to create a centralized government primarily in order to get security for his inherited lands against foreign foes. Sweden, established a few miles from Berlin at the mouth of the Oder and the Elbe, was to his mind the main peril; but he was also aware that he was very much at the mercy of the kingdom of Poland. The [222] The Polish Question 223 area of Poland was immense, extending all the way from the Baltic to the Black sea and eastward far into what we now call Russia. Like all other kingdoms of medieval origin, Poland was not a national state but a feudal government, unstable and involved in frequent wars. Its political success, according to contemporary standards, appeared clearly from the fact that, though settled only in its western section by Poles, it comprised many subjected or partially assimilated races, such as the Lithuanians, Letts, and Little Russians. To the lords of Brandenburg, and therefore also to Frederick William, it was a source of particular concern that along the lower course of the Vistula the Polish state thrust itself between the two Hohenzollern possessions of Brandenburg and East Prussia. That was bad enough but not all, for, in addition, the elector held East Prus- sia, not in fee simple, but as a fief from the Polish king who, as suzerain, was able in many ways to limit the incumbent's control. This East Prussian situation demands a little further elucidation in the light of its development. Originally, Prussia was the name given to the territory on the Baltic sea lying on either side of the Vistula and inhab- ited by a tribe called Prussians. In the course of the thirteenth century the Prussians, who invited disdain and hatred by stubbornly remaining heathens, became the object of a crusade conducted by the Teutonic knights, a military-monkish order on the pattern of the Templars. The Teutonic Knights conquered the Prussians, mak- ing so thorough a job of it that the Prussians, as a peo- 224 The Making of Modern Germany pie, before long entirely disappeared. The name, it is true, lived on, being taken over by their successors. These successors were Germans, the Knights themselves together with burghers and peasants whom the enter- prising conquerors settled on the soil. There thus grew up a curious proprietary state ruled by a monastic order of German warriors and made prosperous by German agriculturists and traders. Of course it was an anomaly and could not live. The agriculturists and traders were sure to resent a continued exploitation by a favored group, and if a neighboring power seized the oppor- tunity, afforded by the local dissensions, to interfere, a calamity was unavoidable. Toward the end of the fourteenth century the Polish kingdom which, like feudal kingdoms generally, was subject to ups and downs, experienced, after a consid- erable eclipse, a new period of expansion, and straight- way directed its attention to Prussia which barred the way to the Baltic. The Knights were invaded, repeat- edly defeated, and obliged at last to bow to Polish dic- tation. By the disastrous treaty of Thorn (1466) they surrendered West Prussia, involving control of the Vistula and access to the Baltic sea, to the king of Poland; and though they retained the less important East Prussia, they did so on condition of holding it as a fief of the Polish crown. With defeat and the result- ant loss of prestige their doom was sealed. In the year 1525 the then Grand Master of the Teu- tonic Knights acknowledged that they were out of date and, accepting the advice of Martin Luther, broke up the order. Incidentally the Grand Master failed not to The Polish Question 225 make generous provision for himself, assuming the sec- ular lordship of East Prussia with the title of duke. His change of status, it goes without saying, did not alter his relation of vassalage to the king of Poland. The first duke bore the name Albert and was a member of the family of Hohenzollern, the same which in its main branch was established in Brandenburg. A hun- dred years later (1618) Albert's immediate line died out, and East Prussia passed by the law of inheritance to the elector of Brandenburg. Such then was the situation of the Great Elector in respect of Poland: he was, as duke of East Prussia, the vassal of the Polish king, and this same Polish king was an over-shadowing personage, since he ruled West Prussia, which lay between Brandenburg and East Prussia, and an immense east-European territory be- sides. Luckily for Frederick William, the stature and might of the king of Poland had for some time been dwindling. He was a feudal king, obliged continually to dispute the power with his nobles and finally worsted in the conflict. Slowly but irresistibly the Polish nobles appropriated the royal lands, authority, and revenues, leaving their sovereign the bare husks. As if their firmly established right to elect the king did not of itself bring him sufficiently under their thumb, they further insisted on paralyzing his action and that of the state for which he stood by two of the most aston- ishing usurpations ever recorded in history. First, every Polish noble sitting in the national assembly claimed the right to veto any measure of the assembly and render it null and void; and second, every noble 226 The Making of Modern Germany at his pleasure presumed to resist an act of the adminis- tration by federating with other nobles and offering armed resistance. In consequence of this lamentable development the Polish kingdom of the seventeenth century, was, even though it still presented a broad front to the world, the foredoomed victim of its own internal disorders. The only event that could have saved it, the rise of a burgher class, never occurred. It will be remembered that it was the social transformation wrought by the growth of towns that caused, and alone caused, the overthrow of feudalism in the other countries of Europe. The Polish nobles and the Polish clergy owned the soil including the very persons of the peasants, and, having tied the hands of the king, found themselves in a situa- tion which may have appealed to them as an earthly paradise, but which from the point of view beginning to prevail in western Europe was unmitigated chaos. In sharp contrast to Poland, scene of a belated and unique feudal orgy, all the neighbors of Poland were at this juncture casting off their feudal garment and providing themselves with an attire better suited to the new age. We have seen how Frederick William, imi- tating Richelieu in France, centralized the power in his person; Sweden, Russia, and Austria were either doing or trying to do the same thing. A distracted medieval anarchy, surrounded by monarchies of a mod- ern type, was sure sooner or later to be overwhelmed. And, as it happened, the first blow was struck in Fred- erick William's lifetime by the great northern power, Sweden. The king of Sweden, pursuing the dream of The Polish Question 227 i a Baltic overlordship, attempted to conquer Poland and almost succeeded. Frederick William, hovering uneasily on the edge of the conflict, was sucked into the vortex, and by means of a mixture of cunning and valor secured a notable advantage — in 1657 the Polish king, in payment of services rendered, renounced his suzerain rights in East Prussia and proclaimed his former vassal its independent ruler. Although it was Sweden which first shook Poland to the foundations, it was the eastern neighbor of Poland, Russia, which compassed the Polish overthrow. With the advent of Peter the Great (1689-1725), Russia embarked on the policy of winning access to the west, and naturally, in the course of time, cast a covetous eye on the distracted realm of the Poles. Border troubles between the two Slav peoples had been frequent in the past, and thus far the Poles rather than the Russians had been the aggressors. With the cen-~ tralizing of the Russian state by the autocratic will of Peter the historic roles were inverted. Slowly Russian influence, based on Russian military power, made its way into Poland until the Russian resident at Warsaw, with 100,000 invisible bayonets behind him, was the uncrowned king of the country. In 1764 the Czarina Catherine, finding herself in com- plete control of the Polish diet, had one of her favor- ites elected king and therewith the last stage of subjection was reached. Probably Catherine's idea was to prepare the way for a quiet absorption of the whole kingdom into Russia, but Poland's western neighbors, Prussia and Austria, had by a centralizing policy of 228 The Making of Modern Germany their own grown so strong that they could force con- sideration of themselves. The result was negotiations, which in 1772 led to the first partition of Poland. In the first partition of Poland, Russia, Austria and Prussia took each one a convenient slice of Polish ter- ritory. Prussia got the province of West Prussia, which had never ceased being a predominantly German territory and which at last joined up distant East Prus- sia with the bulk of the Hohenzollern dominions. Though reduced in area, Poland was not destroyed by the first partition and continued, after 1772, exactly as before, to be a helpless Russian satrapy. But even the corrupt feudal nobles, or some chastened elements of this group, were now stirred to a sense of shame, and in 1791 attempted to save the nation by strengthening the monarchy. The belated attempt was resented by the three powerful, land-grabbing neighbors, and a sec- ond and third partition followed in 1793 and 1795 which put an end to the Polish state. But not in unre- lieved ignominy did Poland perish, for, under the leader- ship of the gallant Kosciusko, it offered resistance to extinction and showed the world that a Polish patriot- ism, sole earnest of a better future, had at last been born. The arrangements made among Russia, Prussia, and Austria in the partitions of 1772, 1793, and 1795 were destined not to last long. When Emperor Napoleon conquered Prussia (1806), he deprived her of most of her Polish acquisitions, and when Napoleon was overthrown in his turn (1814), the question arose what was to be done with the parts of Poland which he had The Polish Question 229 held. The Congress of Vienna, which took the matter in hand, finally decided that these Polish spoils of war were to be established as a new but diminished kingdom of Poland and given to Czar Alexander. A small sec- tion however, called Posen, was returned to Prussia, largely for geographic reasons, while German territory, Saxony and the Rhinelands, was offered and accepted in compensation for the rest. Thus by virtue of the arrangements of 1815, which we may call the fourth and final partition, Prussia, to her undoubted advantage as a German leader, found her share in Poland reduced to West Prussia and Posen. It is with these former Polish provinces that she has remained endowed ever since, and it is these that con- stitute the basis of her Polish problem in recent times. The question of the revival of the Polish state and nationality, a question which has never ceased to agitate public opinion, primarily concerns Russia, because Rus- sia since the year 1815 has been in possession of the bulk of the former Polish territory. In view of this situation, it is easily understood why the only two considerable revolts conducted by the Poles in the nineteenth century (1831 and 1 863 ) were directed against their leading enemy, the Czar. Prussia in this same century has had trouble with her Poles but hardly anything that can be dignified with the term rebellion. West Prussia and Posen constitute, as I have said, the Polish question of Prussia, but the two provinces con- stitute only a minor feature of the Polish question as a whole, because, located on the Polish fringe, they are incapable of determining the destiny of the nation. 230 The Making of Modern Germany The Polish question in Prussia, in the century 1815 to 1915, may be defined as the relation of the Poles in West Prussia and Posen * to the Prussian state. This relation has been marked by ups and downs, has been friendly and hostile in turn, and can not be followed here in detail. Summarizing the situation (if a situa- tion of the greatest variability can be summarized), we may say that the Prussian state has been at consid- erable pains to further the material interests of the provinces of West Prussia and Posen, to extend to them the advantages of an honest, reliable administration, and to promote the cause of education; but at the same time it has attempted to Germanize the Poles by the gradual exclusion of the Polish language from the pub- lic administration and the schools. This Germanization policy has been resisted by the Poles with, on the whole, remarkable success. Aroused by a sense of oppression, they have made of their lan- guage and customs a sacred cult with the result that the official statistics indicate that they are as strong, if not stronger, in West Prussia and Posen at the beginning of the twentieth century than they were a hundred years earlier. But West Prussia and Posen, it should be observed, neither are now nor were, at the time of their acquisition by Prussia, Polish in a strictly national sense. They are and have been mixed provinces, the distribution of Poles and Germans ac- • There are Poles in the two other eastern provinces of Prussia, Silesia and East Prussia, but these constitute, or at least thus far have constituted, a body of loyal Prussians, and are a negligible part of the Polish problem in Prussia. The Polish Question 231 cording to the statistics of 1905 as given in the Encyclo- pedia Britannica being as follows : Germans Poles West Prussia — 1,073,000 567,000 Posen 900,000 i ,100,000 It thus appears that the Germans constitute about sixty-five per cent of the population of the West Prus- sia and about forty-five per cent of the population of Posen. Only in the eastern districts of Posen is it pos- sible to speak of an indisputable Polish preponderance. However, a detailed analysis of the statistics reveals a weakness in the German situation. The Teutonic element is chiefly urban, while the Polish element is located on the soil in the capacity either of landlords or of proprietary peasants. The old feudal tenure, so disastrous a feature of the old kingdom of Poland, has long given way, the leading evidence of its former prevalence being the persistence of large estates. This agricultural preponderance of the Poles, Prince Bismarck considered the chief obstruction to German- ization, and accordingly, in 1886, he put through the Prussian diet his land purchase plan, by virtue of which the state was authorized to buy up estates, Polish or German, with the view to parceling them out among German peasant colonists. The policy has had a certain success in so far as German colonists to the number of some thousands have been settled on the soil, but the Poles by private colonizing enterprises of their own have settled an equal or larger number of Poles on the land, and the racial distribution, after thirty 232 The Making of Modern Germany years of government effort along Bismarck's lines, remains substantially unchanged. Exasperated by the successful Polish counter-meas- ures, the Prussian government in the first decade of the twentieth century persuaded the legislature to pass a measure authorizing the expropriation of Polish land- lords in certain indicated districts on condition of pay- ing them adequate compensation; but the measure thus far has been merely dangled as a threat and has not been put into practice. From this hurried description it will appear that the relation of the Poles to the Prussian state has been characterized in recent times by an increasing irritation. The Germans conceive the Poles to be a danger and distrust their loyalty; the Poles by every means at their disposal resist the attempt to wean them from their national faith. Behind the cantankerous situation, wholly and adequately explaining it, lurks the shadow of the larger Polish question, the question whether or no the Polish state will be revived. Without any doubt that revival has been moved within the realm of probability by the present-day con- dition of the Poles in all the partitioned sections. They have outgrown the hampering feudal system which ruined them in the first place, they have transformed their serfs into a free peasant class, they have seen the rise in their midst of cities with a waxing trade and industry, and they have developed to an extraordinary degree the community feeling which we call patriotism. Present-day Poland, from the point of view of social structure, is a modern commonwealth, to all appear- The Polish Question 233 ances provided with the main conditions necessary to twentieth century existence. And now observe: should Poland in the future be reconstituted, it is very certain that it will put forth a claim to the Prussian provinces of West Prussia and Posen; Hotspur Poles will go further and also demand Silesia and East Prussia. But all such claims will be vigorously resisted by Prussia and Germany on the ground that Silesia and East Prussia are preponder- antly German, while West Prussia and Posen are quite as German as they are Polish and politically necessary to Germany's position in central Europe. We may therefore confidently affirm that the Polish question in Prussia is a serious one, grounded in stubborn facts and not likely to yield to a wash of sentimental phrases. It is an issue of power between a strong nation constituted as a state and a weaker nation which, after a terrible experience, has been lately getting stronger, and which fully hopes to reconstitute itself as a state, even though it will have to bide the word of the builder Time. The great war now going on in Europe has unques- tionably greatly increased the chances of the redemp- tion of Poland. Indeed in the light of the capital events of the summer of 1915 it is hardly an audacious proph- ecy to declare that a Polish kingdom of some sort has become a certainty. Supposing an independent Poland called into being as the result of a German effort to weaken Russia — would we be justified in deducing that the effect will be a reconciliation between Poles and Germans and the amicable disposal of the Polish troubles in Prussia? Search as I may, I can discover 234 The Making of Modern Germany no reason for answering such a question with an opti- mistic affirmative; for the issue between Poles and Ger- mans, as my whole exposition shows, is a race issue which has already been agitated for more than a thou- sand years. In my view at least, since nature has been so careless as to fail to provide clear geographical boundaries between Poles and Germans, they will prob- ably go on disputing the soil with each other in the future as in the past. It is our civilized habit to lament and whine over the human struggle as over something utterly unreasonable, but we are none the less aware that the struggle is a part of the law of life and that to engage in it is to furnish evidence not of decay but of health and vigor. APPENDIX G THE EMS DISPATCH T F I return to the Ems dispatch in order to make an •* addition to my brief reference in Lecture V, p. 148, it is because an enormous myth, a veritable upas-tree of luxuriant misinformation has gathered around this episode. The myth enjoys such general currency that quite uninformed people will tell you gravely that the Ems dispatch " caused " the Franco-German war; they will admit, on inquiry, that they never troubled to read it, but they have been told by somebody — no matter who — or read somewhere — they can't remember where — that it was a diabolical invention of Bismarck' who thereby successfully tricked the innocent French government into declaring war. As the most effective method I know for dealing with this mare's nest I shall attempt to tell the unvarnished tale of happenings im- mediately preceding and following the famous message. The communication known as the Ems dispatch was of course but a single feature of the complex, critical issue between France and Prussia, occasioned by the candidature of Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen for the Spanish throne. Over this candidature, an- nounced in the early days of July, France and the French government might justifiably feel an alarm, [235] 236 The Making of Modern Germany especially in view of the very acrid relations between Paris and Berlin in the four years just past, 1866-70. A Hohenzollern dynasty beyond the Pyrenees was cer- tainly unpleasant and might prove perilous. Since French opinion became agitated, the government could hardly avoid making a protest. But the government of Napoleon III needed no urging, and eagerly, not to say precipitately, dispatched Count Benedetti to the water- ing-place of Ems where King William of Prussia was taking the cure. The upshot of some rather exciting but perfectly polite exchanges was that, on July 12, the name of Prince Leopold was withdrawn by means of a dispatch addressed by the young man's father to the Spanish committee which had solicited the candida- ture in the first place. Therewith the incident was closed. It would have been the part of good sense for the French government to accept the situation and let the world, as it was inclined to do, interpret the with- drawal as a French diplomatic triumph. But the French foreign minister, the duke of Gra- mont, resolved not to take this view. It irked him that neither Prussia nor its king was involved in Prince Leopold's withdrawal, which presented itself in the light of a voluntary, unofficial act. By an extravagant speech in the chamber of deputies Gramont had lashed public opinion in Paris to a patriotic fury and he now felt his position shaken unless he should succeed in adminis- tering some sort of humiliation to the Prussian king by personally involving him in his relative's declination. He therefore made the fatal mistake of presenting a new demand, just as it seemed to the diplomatic world The Ems Dispatch 237 that the crisis had happily passed. In the night from July 12 to July 13 he wired Benedetti at Ems that Leo- pold's withdrawal was not enough, and that it would have to be supplemented with the promise of the Prus- sian king that he would never permit a renewal of the candidature in the future.* On the morning of July 13, Benedetti accidentally met King William on the public promenade and, seizing the opportunity, then and there communicated the new demand. The king was greatly taken back and in a warm but courteous manner rejected the proposal; and when Benedetti later in the day tried to get another audience, the sovereign had him informed by an adjutant that his decision of the morning remained unaltered. The unexpectedness and impertinence of the new demand — for as distinctly impertinent it presented itself to the king and his attendants — disturbed the monarch's equanimity and he resolved to consult his trusted foreign minister. Bismarck had been at his country place, Varzin, but just before the solution, on July 12, of the first crisis he had come on to Berlin in order to be nearer the scene of disturbance. To Ber- lin, therefore, the king had a secretary of the foreign office, Abeken by name, send a report of the day's hap- * On the afternoon of July 12, Gramont made an additional demand through the Prussian ambassador in Paris to the effect that the king was to write a letter to Napoleon, which in purport would be a letter of apology. Since this demand does not connect up with the events directly leading to the Ems dispatch, I omit it from my story. It must be considered, however, if we desire to appreciate Gramont's inflamed state of mind. 238 The Making of Modern Germany penings. It came into Bismarck's hands at 6 P. M. of July 13, and read as follows: Abeken to Count Bismarck. — His Majesty, the king, writes me : " During an accidental encounter with Count Benedetti upon the public promenade he asked me, finally in a most ob- trusive manner, to authorize him to telegraph his government that I would bind myself never to give my consent should the Hohenzollerns at some future time reconsider the candidacy for the Spanish crown. I refused, somewhat sternly in the end, to comply with this demand, saying that I neither could nor would enter into an engagement of this nature a tout jamais. I of course told him that I had as yet not received any word (from Prince Leopold) ; but since he had already been notified through Paris from Madrid, it must be obvious to him that my govern- ment had no part in this transaction." Later his Majesty received a letter from the prince. His Majesty having told Count Benedetti that he expected a com- munication from the prince, he decided, in consideration of the demand mentioned above and upon the advice of Count Eulen- burg and myself, not to grant Count Benedetti another audience about this affair, but to notify him by an adjutant that the prince's letter had confirmed the intelligence received by Bene- detti from Paris, and that his Majesty had no further communi- cation to make to the ambassador. His Majesty leaves it to your decision whether this new demand presented by Benedetti and our rejection of it should not immediately be made known to our ambassador (at Paris) and the press.* The above was the first intimation of the new French demand which Bismarck had and, in his prejudiced sight, it was without any question an attempt to humil- iate his sovereign. He was glad the king had been firm but that was not enough. He would proclaim the * This is the translation given in the English version of H. von Sybel, The Founding of the German Empire by William i, vol. vu, 394. T. Y. Crowell Co. The Ems Dispatch 239 firmness abroad and meet the challenger, Gramont, face to face. In order to do this he had only to use the per- mission extended by King William at the close of his message. With Moltke and Roon present — they hap- pened all three to be sitting at dinner — he took out a pencil and composed the following communication : After the royal government of Spain had officially announced to the imperial government of France that the prince of Hohen- zollern had withdrawn his acceptance of the Spanish crown, the French ambassador at Erns presented a further demand to his Majesty, the king, asking him for authority to telegraph to Paris that his Majesty, the king, would bind himself never to give his consent should the Hohenzollerns at some future time reconsider the candidacy for the Spanish crown. Hereupon his Majesty refused to grant the French ambassador another audi- ence about this affair, and notified him by an adjutant on duty that his Majesty had no further communication to make to the ambassador.* Having read this version of the Ems encounter aloud to his visitors, he sent it at once to the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, which the government used for conveying information to the public, and later to the representatives of Prussia abroad in order that they might be informed of the state of the negotiations. Such are the main facts touching the Bismarckian communication to the press about the Ems develop- ments. With regard to it we note, first, that it was fully authorized by the king; second, that it was an exact transcription of the facts; and third, that it was a public, categorical rejection of Gramont's second de- * The Founding of the German Empire, vol. vn, 396. 240 The Making of Modern Germany mand and obliged that inept gentleman either to eat his words or else follow his words with a blow. Unluckily for Gramont, he and, in a more limited sense, the French government, the chambers, and the Parisian press and public, had committed themselves too utterly to an advanced position to recede from it without loss of pride. As a result they now enthusias- tically decided to take the consequences. On July 15, with the cooperation of government, chambers, and the boulevard public, war was declared. I shall conclude this narrative of facts by asking and answering a few questions. /. — Can it be maintained with any semblance of reason that Bismarck "falsified" the Ems dispatch? Remember it was sent by Abeken, a secretary of the Foreign Office, in temporary attendance on the king. To declare for " falsification " one must take the ground that a superior is obliged to communicate ver- batim to the public every report made by a subordinate in the performance of his duty. Such an idea is absurd and contrary to all known practice. A minister must be a free agent and communicate to the public as much of current affairs as he considers expedient; and he and not one of his clerks must accept responsibility for his step. Besides, if Bismarck felt any doubt about his liberty of action, there was the express permission in the telegram to take the press into his confidence ! Consequently the question whether Bismarck committed a falsification may be answered with an emphatic no. 2. — Who caused the Franco-Prussian war? My development shows that the turn that led to war was The Ems Dispatch 241 taken when Gramont presented his second demand, which the king personally and emphatically rejected. Of course I hold, and have maintained in Lecture v, that, in the last analysis, the war was caused by a much larger issue, by the question of German unification which Prussia supported and France opposed during four years of waxing exasperation. If, however, after the fashion of a certain myopic school of political his- torians, the incident of the Spanish candidature be isolated for consideration, the responsibility for the war must undoubtedly be referred not to what King William did at Ems or Bismarck at Berlin, but to the duke of Gramont's hasty and senseless reopening of a quarrel which had just been happily composed. j. — Was Bismarck a factor in bringing about the war? To this question I do not see how it is possible to answer other than by a decided yes. The chancellor was- a factor in two ways : first, by communicating King Wil- liam's rejection of Gramont's -demand to the world and deliberately bringing the issue to a show-down, that is, to the point where Gramont would have to sheath the sword he had been too carelessly flourishing or else save his face by striking a blow with it; and second, he was a factor by his whole policy of German unification consistently pursued since 1862. This policy had been interfered, with by France in 1866, and her unfriendly attitude had, if anything, grown more un- friendly since then. Bismarck had come to the con- clusion that only war would break down the French opposition, but also that a French war would release such patriotic enthusiasm throughout the whole of Ger- 242 The Making of Modern Germany many that the union of north and south would follow automatically. To sum up, Bismarck in July, 1870, had ground for thinking that war with France would come sooner or later, that it was good diplomacy to choose the moment and not have it chosen by the enemy, and finally, that the struggle would probably prove productive of na- tional good. When therefore Gramont and the French government foolishly and to the loud shrilling of the war-trumpet delivered themselves into his hands, he met challenge with challenge, fully knowing that the final implication of his stand was war. He did not play and coquette with the situation, he was in dead earnest. It always takes two to fight, and therefore it would be absurd on its face to contend that Bismarck did not help produce the Franco-Prussian war. But from that position to an exoneration of the French government, both in the Spanish affair and in the much more weighty, in fact, in the one essential issue, that of German uni- fication, is a step that no sincere student will be able to take. APPENDIX H THE ALSACE-LORRAINE QUESTION T F I undertake to make an addition to my story of the ^ cession of Alsace-Lorraine as told in Lecture v, it is not to elaborate the famous boundary dispute in the light of the many wars fought and treaties signed be- tween France and Germany. Such a legal and military tale, however interesting it might prove to be, lies beyond the scope of a volume like the present. Who- ever desires to know the strange vicissitudes of the Alsace-Lorraine border can obtain them in a clear, objective presentation by Ruth Putnam: Alsace-Lor- raine, From Caesar to Kaiser, 58 B. c.-/#7/ A. D.* A chapter called " After the Cession " exceeds the promise of the title, for it carries the administrative history of the region down to 1914. All that I wish to do in this note is to submit a few data which, in view of the prominence given the Alsace- Lorraine question in the present war, may help the reader form an opinion with regard to existing condi- tions in the disputed territory. When the transfer of title took place in 1871, both the French and the German people entertained illusions touching Alsace-Lorraine, to which they gave free and even extravagant expression. The exceedingly roman- *G. P. Putnam's Sons, N. Y., 1915. [243] 244 The Making of Modern Germany tic view of the French was that the people of Alsace- Lorraine were flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone; if they had once belonged to Germany, it was because in some remote age they had been filched from France, and if they spoke a language other than French, it was a rude German patois but it was not German. The equally romantic view of the Germans was that the new fellow-citizens had been German till the seven- teenth century and that although they had since then acquired a regrettable French veneer, they would hur- riedly cast it off and joyfully be assimilated to their brethren across the Rhine. While the French view was based on the knowledge of a community of sentiment, the German view was inspired by trust in the community of speech. For that the Alsatian tongue was a patois or dialect the Germans admitted ; but so was the spoken language of the Baden- ers, the Suabians, the Bavarians, and of every other tribe which has been merged in the German nation. And if the Alsatians did not command literary German, that was regrettable but not unintelligible in view of the fact that the French government had given the people in- sufficient opportunity to learn German in their schools. To prove their contention the victors of 1871 had a census taken shortly after the occupation, and lo and behold! the German view seemed to be established beyond cavil. Since then one census has followed another at regular intervals, and although the popula- tion has increased by one-half, there has been no par- ticular change in the ratio of French to German speech. The most recent census, that of 1910, may serve to The Alsace-Lorraine Question 245 inform us how that ratio stands : those who speak Ger- man are given at 1,634,260 and those who speak French at 204,262.* The French-speakers are mostly in Lor- raine ; Alsace, except in some western districts, is wholly German-speaking. Thus the Germans with their figures seemed to have triumphed over the French — seemed, for no sooner had they taken control than they discovered that speech has nothing to do with sentiment, at least in this ancient border-land, and that the French patriotism of Alsace- Lorraine was more than an easily remediable habit of mind. There cannot be the least question that at the time of the cession the profound and overwhelming sentiment of the provinces was French. Back in the seventeenth century, at the time of the conquest by France, the sentiment was undoubtedly German, although of the tempered sort in keeping with the pal- pable decline of German nationality. For several generations the assimilation to France proceeded slowly. Travelers continued to note the German character of Alsace, and as late as 1770, the young Goethe, pur- suing his university studies in Strassburg, reported conditions in town and country that were essentially German. Then came the French Revolution. The heroic over- throw of a hateful regime coupled as it was with the prophecy of a new world of democratic justice won the hearts of the Alsatians and caused them to merge their consciousness with that of their French fellow-citizens. From 1789 to 1870 they shared in the vast transforma- • The Statesman's Year-book, 1915. 246 The Making of Modern Germany tion that made France into a modern, bourgeois, and industrial commonwealth, and although they still held fast to their German speech, they became filled with a definite French patriotism. No wonder therefore that in 1870 they resented their incorporation in the new German Empire. Since that event some forty years have passed, and the question arises: Has there been any change in the sentiment of Alsace-Lorraine? An enormous amount of partisan and conflicting evidence makes it impossible to give a conclusive and unchallengeable answer. That the German-speakers have adopted a German conscious- ness, as it was hoped in 1871 they would do, may be denied; but it may also be denied that they have retained the passionate French consciousness which character- ized them at the time of the treaty of Frankfort. The tendency, open and confessed, has been toward an Alsatian consciousness which was to be neither French nor German, but to be made up in equal shares of either element. An investigation of the native sentiment and opinion, conducted with the strict desire to know the facts, would do well to abandon the consideration of Alsace-Lorraine in the bulk, and to turn its attention to the different geographical regions and to the various strata of the population, since from time immemorial the sectional and factional character of the border-land has been marked. As such a detailed review is out of the ques- tion here — even if reliable material were at our dis- posal — I shall content myself with noting a few matters indicative of the present-day situation. The Alsace-Lorraine Question 247 In the first place, the population of Alsace-Lorraine has suffered an important structural change since 1871. Several hundred thousand people, too French in feeling to submit to the new regime, carried themselves and their goods across the Vosges mountains. The official figure of these emigrants is 270,000, but their number was probably much larger.* Their place was promptly taken by immigrants from Alt-Deutschland, while in addition, the government brought in thousands of em- ployees to fill railroad, financial, or other posts, for which there were at first no native applicants or for which it was thought the natives could not be trusted. Although the exact figures of this invasion are unob- tainable, they are considerable enough to make the neo- German element a weighty factor in all the adminis- trative and commercial centers. An interesting native element, though at best a. minority, are the Protestants of Lower Alsace (Unterelsass). There are several hundred thousand of these whose protestantism is of German origin, and who, besides, are involved in daily economic and intel- lectual exchange with their German neighbors. That their French political sentiment has suffered impair- ment is shown by the fact that within a score of years of their incorporation in Germany, they returned mem- bers to the Reichstag who modified their attitude of protest by attaching themselves to one of the acknowl- edged German parties. Before the beginning of the new century several * Alsace and Lorraine, from Caesar to Kaiser, 58 B. €.-1871 A. D., p. 191. 248 The Making of Modern Germany other districts, some of them with Catholic constituents, instructed their Reichstag representatives to do the same. Unquestionably as late as 1914 the fifteen mem- bers which Alsace-Lorraine sends to Berlin still pre- served a strong provincial sentiment, but only two of the number declared for France at the beginning of the war, while the other thirteen, doubtless not without great agony of spirit, threw in their lot with Germany. This decision of the majority, which we are probably justified in assuming to be in line with the opinion of their constituents, was so movingly expressed by Repre- sentative Ricklin that I shall cite his letter to the Presi- dent of the Reichstag. Dr. Ricklin not only sits for Alsace in the Reichstag but is also the presiding officer of the Alsatian lower house. He was hindered by ill- ness from attending the Reichstag session of August 4, 1914, which voted the credits for the war. To explain his absence he wrote a letter to the chief official of the German parliament part of which reads: The idea of war between Germany and France is so terrible and awful for us people in Alsace-Lorraine that we hardly dare to think of it. We do not want a war between Germany and France at any cost, certainly not for the sake of altering our political position. People who have spread a different view among the French and have thereby fanned the French thoughts of war are traitors to our people and have drawn upon them the curses of thousands of our people, fathers, mothers, and wives, who with bleeding hearts must see their sons and husbands go into the most terrible of all wars. To the last we hoped that we might be spared the terrors of a war between Germany and France, and even now our people refuse to give up hope. If, however, God has decreed otherwise, well — then the people of Alsace-Lorraine will do their whole duty and they will do it without a single reservation. The Alsace-Lorraine Question 249 The rules of the Reichstag do not permit a representative to vote by mail, but I have the right to inform you that I should have voted, if I had been present, in favor of all the bills which the present state of affairs demanded, including the bill grant- ing the necessary funds for carrying on the war.* One last consideration touching this difficult matter of Alsatian sentiment. The opinion in Alsace that gets itself expressed in newspaper and magazine is naturally that of the educated classes who dwell in towns and constitute the bourgeoisie. But precisely this is the element affected by French culture and generally de- voted to French speech and French traditions. The broad masses, the peasants and artisans, constituting a clear majority of the population, have been barely touched by French literary or social influences and remain an essentially German group. However, if the majority employed in field and shop have pre- served a German consciousness that fact is not much bruited about, for it is the educated townsman with his Gallicized or semi-Gallicized consciousness who does the talking and writing and boldly proclaims his voice as that of the whole province. The local administrative story of Alsace-Lorraine, in the period 1871-1914, confirms the impression conveyed by the action of the Reichstag representatives in 1914 of a slow reassimilation to Germany. It was under the title of Reichsland that Alsace-Lorraine was incor- porated in Germany. Owing to the prevailing hostile sentiment, exceptional regulations were kept in force * Edmund von Mach, Germany's Point of Viev), p. 87-88. A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago. 250 The Making of Modern Germany for a long time and only gradually relaxed. The first considerable concession was made in 1874, when the province was accorded a representation of fifteen mem- bers in the Reichstag. The second notable concession belongs to the year 1879, when a general local government was established which, however, gave but a limited voice to the indig- enous population. Not till 1911 did Alsace-Lorraine get a constitution of a fairly liberal character. By vir- tue of this instrument Alsace-Lorraine is accorded three votes in the Bundesrath, and the emperor, the acknowl- edged chief executive of the Reichsland, appoints a rep- resentative or Statthalter who takes up his residence at Strassburg. A Landtag of two houses is entrusted with the legislative rights. The upper house is composed of about forty mem- bers appointed partly by the emperor and partly by various local corporations, while the lower house is elected by the people on the basis of universal direct male suffrage exercised by secret ballot. How this constitution will work it is yet too early to say. Some intelligent foreign observers have voiced the opinion that the constitution, if followed by further conciliatory measures, will satisfy the native population and lead them to take their stand once and for all on " home- rule within the German Empire." * But since then the war has broken out and the fate of Alsace-Lorraine is once again as so often before, to be decided by the sword. * Alsace-Lorraine, from Caesar to Kaiser, 58 B. €.-1871 A. D.t p. 194 (note), names the American, Dr. David Starr Jordan and the Italian, Professor Ferrero, as supporting the above opinion. From Haxen't £aro«>« Sine* 1815. Cc With the aid of thii map of Germany in 1914 the reader can follow the territorial in the German east, and by the Congress of Vienna (1815) its eastern development had on the Rhine by making over to her the provinces called the Rhinelands and Westpha bulk of the monarchy, and this weakness was remedied when, after the successful war Therewith Prussia reached the territorial extent she has retained to this day (1915). Her admitted predominance in the empire, even if there were no historical reasoir 134,000 square miles of territory. THE GERMAX EMPIRE 1914. Abbreviations: B .-Hntnsividt !./////»• RA Ili'uss rtilfr Luir. R.-1.-K fuss younger Ijnr SA.Sajir.lHe/ilmiy. Sf.C^Sajrrolwy-ffaaka | S.M. V//.IY'. '//•///«///('// S \V .lnr>' )li //»«r S I, SrhuHiHhunt tippe S R J>*IHVT^ AflWatK* « ' fl :, 1910, by Henry Holt and Company. >pment of Prussia in the nineteenth century. The state of Brandenburg-Prussia began rd the boundaries which it still enjoys. But this same Congress strengthened Prussia It was an undoubted weakness that these western lands were not contiguous with the , Bismarck incorporated Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and Nassau in the kingdom of Prussia, mce will show that Prussia is larger than all the other German states taken together. , is sufficiently explained on the sole ground of the material importance conferred by BIBLIOGRAPHY THE following titles are submitted in the hope of giving assist- ance to the reader who desires fuller information on the many questions too lightly touched upon in the foregoing pages. While I have confined myself, in the main, to English titles, I have added a few German ones for the convenience of those familiar with that language. BOOKS ON POLITICAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY ERDMANNSDORFFER, B. Deutsche Geschichte von 1648-1740. Published in Oncken's Allgemeine Geschichte. FRIEDJUNG, H. Der Kampf um die Vorherrschaft in Deutsch- land, 1859-66. Stuttgart. HARRIS, N. D. Intervention and Colonization in Africa. Houghton Mifflin Co. HEADLAM, J. W. Bismarck and the Foundation of the Ger- man Empire, 1815-1871. G. P. Putnam's Sons. HENDERSON, E. F. A Short History of Germany. 2 vols. The Macmillan Company. HOWARD, B. E. The German Empire. The Macmillan Com- pany. HUE DE GRAIS. Handbuch der Verfassung und Verwaltung in Preussen und dem Deutschen Reich. Berlin. LOWELL, A. L. Governments and Parties in Continental Eu- rope. 2 vols. Houghton Mifflin Co. PRIEST, G. M. Germany since 1740. Ginn and Co. PUTNAM, RUTH. Alsace and Lorraine from Caesar to Kaiser, 58 B. C.-I8JI A. D. G. P. Putnam's Sons. ROBINSON, J. H. Constitution of the Kingdom of Prussia. Am. Acad. of Polit. and Social Sci., 1894. STERN, A. Geschichte Europas von 1815 bis zum Frankfurter Frieden von 1871. 6 vols. Berlin. [251] 252 The Making of Modern Germany SYBEL, H. VON. The Founding of the Gennan Empire by Wil- liam I. 7 vols. Thomas Y. Crowell Co. TREITSCHKE, H. VON. Deutsche Geschichte im 19 Jahrhun- dert. 5 vols. Leipzig. An interesting work by a passionate patriot; going unfortunately only to the year 1848. TUTTLE, H. History of Prussia. 4 vols. Hough ton Mifflin Co. This is an unfinished work, going from the beginnings of Brandenburg to the middle of the Seven Years' War. BOOKS ON CIVILIZATION, WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT DAWSON, W. H. Prince Bismarck and State Socialism; The German Workman; The Evolution of Modern Germany. Charles Scribner's Sons. Municipal Life and Government in Germany. Longman's, Green, & Co. DEWEY, JOHN. German Philosophy and Politics. Henry Holt &Co. FRANCKE, KUNO. A History of German Literature as De- termined by Social Forces. Henry Holt & Co. HINTZE, O. Historische und Politische Aufsdtze. 4 vols. Berlin. HELFFERICH, K. Germany's Economic Progress and National Wealth. Berlin. HOWE, F. C. Socialized Germany. Charles Scribner's Sons. LICHTENBERGER, HENRI. Germany and its Evolution in Mod- ern Times. Henry Holt & Co. SCHMOLLER, G. Staats und Sozialwissensthaftliche Forschun- gen. Leipzig. WHITMAN, S. Imperial Germany. Chautauqua Press. BIOGRAPHIES AND MEMOIRS BISMARCK, OTTO, PRINCE VON. Reflections and Reminiscences. Harper and Brothers. CARLYLE, THOMAS. Life of Frederick the Great. 8 vols. Charles Scribner's Sons. HEADLAM, J. W. Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire. G. P- Putnam's Sons. Bibliography 253 HENDERSON, E. F. Blucher and the Uprising of Prussia against Napoleon. G. P. Putnam's Sons. KoSER, R. Koenig Friedrich der Grosse. 2 vols. Stuttgart. LEHMANN, M. Freiherr vom Stein. 3 vols. ; Scharnhorst. Leipzig. MARCKS, E. Kaiser Wilhelm I. Leipzig. Bismarck (not yet complete). Stuttgart. METTERNICH, PRINCE. Memoirs. 4 vols. Harper and Brothers. REDDAWAY, W. F. Frederick the Great and the Rise of Prus- sia. G. P. Putnam's Sons. SEELEY, J. R. Life and Times of Stein. 3 vols. G. P. Put- nam's Sons. SMITH, MUNROE. Bismarck and German Unity. The Mac- millan Company. WAR BOOKS Under this head I have enumerated a number of works deal- ing with the policy and general situation of Germany before and after the war. BERNHARDI, F. VON. Germany and the Next War. Long- man's, Green, & Co. BULOW, PRINCE VON. Imperial Germany. Dodd, Mead & Co. BURGESS, J. W. The European War of 1914. A. C. McClurg &Co. CLAPP, E. J. Economic Aspects of the War. Yale University Press. CRAMB, J. A. Germany and England. E. P. Button & Co. FROBENIUS. The German Empire's Hour of Destiny. Mc- Bride & Nast. GOLTZ, VON DER. The Nation in Arms: A treatise on Modern Military Systems and the Conduct of War. Translated by P. A. Ashworth. George H. Doran Co. MACH, EDMUND VON. Germany's Point of View. A. C. Mc- Clurg & Co. INDEX Alsace, ceded to France in 1648, 17; and part of Lor- raine ceded to Germany, I52'3>' prize of victor in war of 1914, 2OO; discussion of issues of, 243-50 Austria, formation of state of, 46-47 ; nominal headship of Germany, 47; loses ground in Germany at Congress of Vienna, 90-92; renewed rivalry with Prussia, 103; allied with Prussia in Dan- ish war, 138-39; in war of 1866, 140-43; alliance of with German Empire, 176; ultimatum to Serbia, 199 Bismarck, historic role of uni- fier of Germany, 128; be- comes prime minister of Prussia, 132; biography of, 132-33; develops anti-Aus- trian program, 134-5; con- ducts the Danish war, 138; makes war on Austria, 140- 42; and the Spanish inci- dent, 148; chancellor of the Empire, 168; inaugurates the Kulturkampf, 168-69; passes Insurance Laws, 171-2; his foreign policy after 1870, I75'77; dis- [255 missal from office, 177-8; and Ems dispatch, 235-42 Bliicher, at head of Prussian army, 83 ; in campaign of 1813, 86; in Waterloo cam- paign, 87-88 Brandenburg, nucleus of modern Germany, 22 ; early history of, 22-24; merged in Prussia, 36 Bund, established in 1815, 104; Bismarck's contempt for, 134-5 Carlyle, mediates German thought, 113 Civilization, what we mean by, 200-1 Charles v, Emperor, and the Reformation, 1 1 - 1 2 Charles vi, Emperor, last male of Hapsburg line, 49 Chemistry (German), 182-3 Church, of the Middle Ages, 7; quarrels with the Em- pire, 8 City government in Germany, 186-89; Dawson's praise of, 189 Cleves, on lower Rhine ac- quired by Brandenburg, 24 Collectivism, Prussian tenden- cies toward, 95 ; its triumph 256 Index in modern Germany, 163- 68, 1 84-5 ; scorned by in- dividualists, 1 80- 1 ; question of involved in war of 1914, 205 Colonial movement of the European powers, 194-5, 219-21 Congress of Vienna, 89-91 Conscription law of 1814, 92; reform of as proposed by William I, 129-30 Constitution of Germany, 145-6; powers of emperor under, 212-14 Constitution of Prussia, granted in 1850, 119; de- scribed, 119-20 Czarina Elizabeth, death of, 54 Danish war of 1864, 137-9 Democracy, in modern Ger- many, 164-68; and Liberal- ism contrasted, 166-7 Dual Alliance, of France and Russia, 190 Education, compulsory in Prussia, 108-9 >' develop- ment of in modern Ger- many, 185 Edward vn (of England), anti-German policy of, 192 Ems dispatch, 148, 235-42 Fichte (philosopher), 93 France, brought into rivalry with Prussia at Congress of Vienna, 91 ; rivalry of 1866- 70, 146-7; permanent es- trangement from Germany, 175; dual alliance with Russia, 190; entente with Great Britain, 192 Frederick William, the Great Elector, 25; territory gov- erned by, 26; unifying pol- icy of, 27-28 ; and the army, 29 Frederick William I, father of Frederick the Great, 44; quarrels with his son, 45 Frederick William n, meets the French Revolution, 71-72 Frederick William in, de- feated and crushed at Jena, 73 J signs peace of Tilsit, 73 ; is forced to make war on Napoleon, 83 ; opposes a constitution, 105-7 > death of, 114 Frederick William iv, charac- ter of, 114; bows to revo- lution of 1848, 115-16; offered German imperial crown, 117-18; grants Prus- sia a constitution, 119; dies discredited, 128 Frederick n, called the Great, 35 ; his youth, 42-43 ; quar- rels with his father, 44-45 ; relation with Voltaire, 43 ; challenges ascendancy of Austria in Germany, 48; his motives in entering Silesia, 50; engages in Seven Years' War, 52-54; statesman and warrior, 55- 56; develops manufactures, Index 257 56-57; his method of work, 59; his army, 60-61 ; fails to understand German re- vival, 62 ; his death, 63 French Revolution, 67-69 ; produces Napoleon Bona- parte, 70; and Prussia, 71; effect on Germany, 99- IOI German Colonies, 194-5, 219- 21 German Emperor, powers of, 212-14 German Science, in nineteenth century, 181-2 Germany, eighteenth century revival in, 61-62; recon- struction of at Congress of Vienna, 102-4; early nine- teenth century revival in, 112-13; revolution of 1848 in, 116-121; unification of begins, 145 ; in war of 1870, 149-51; unification com- pleted, 152; government of described, 160-8; antag- onizes Great Britain, 191-2, 195 (note) Goethe, on rebirth of German nationalism, 63 Great Britain, sides with Prussia in Seven Years' War, 52 ; its system of gov- ernment, 94-95 ; its foreign policy in recent times, 190- 3 ; entente with France, 192; continued sea suprem- acy at stake in war of 1914, 200; individualism of at stake, 205 Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, 17 Hardenberg, successor of Stein, 79 Hohenzollern, house of in Brandenburg, 25 ; their dynastic tradition of service, 40-42 Holy Alliance, 107 Holy Roman Empire (Ger- many), decay of at end of Thirty Years' War, 13-14; Austrian control of, 47-48; end of in 1806, 100-101. Humboldt, Wilhelm, reor- ganizes system of instruc- tion, 80-8 1 Individualism, as a political theory, 38; waning of in the United States, 39-40; triumph of in England, 95, 163; also in United States, 163, 166-7; versus collectiv- ism, 1 80- 1 ; challenged in war of 1914, 205 Industrial courts, 185 Industrial development of Germany, 1 70-7 1 ; illus- trated by iron production, 183; by foreign trade, 183-4 Insurance Laws (German), 171-72; copied by Great Britain, 172-73. Junkers, in Prussia, 58; their role after Jena, 77 Kant (philosopher), 61 ; his doctrine of duty, 93 258 Index Koeniggraetz, battle of, 142 Koerner (poet), dies in War of Liberation, 84 Kultur, meaning of, 203-4; its relation to militarism, 204 Kulturkampf, 168-9 Leipzig, battle of, 85 Liberalism, growth of in Prus- sia, 105-6; opposed to army reform, 131, 135-6; opposed to Democracy, 166-7 Louise, Queen of Prussia, 75 ; death of, 82-83 Luther, Martin, 10, n Maria Theresa, Empress, suc- ceeds her father, 49; her character, 51; engages in Seven Years' War, 52-54 Marx, Karl, father of German Socialism, 173 Militarism (German), at- tacked by allies in war of 1914, 2O2; compared with French, Russian, and Brit- ish variety of, 202-3 Moltke, in war of 1866, 141- 42; in war of 1870, 150 Morocco, French claims to, 192 Motley, friendship of with Bismarck, 132-33 Napoleon Bonaparte, seizes power in France, 70; begins his conquest of Europe, 72; invades Russia, 82 ; his over- throw, 84-89; destroys the Holy Roman Empire, 101 Napoleon in, attitude of in war of 1866, 143-4; nego- tiates with Prussia, 146-7 ; captured at Sedan, 151 North German Confederation, 145-6; merged in German Empire, 152 Paris, siege of, 151 Parliament (German) of 1848, 116-18 Parliament (Prussian) of 1848, 118-19; quarrels with king over army reform, 130- 32 Patriarchal system of Prussia, 38-40, 56; modified by Stein, 92 Peace of Frankfort of 1871, 151 Peace of Prague (1866), H2-3 Peace of Tilsit, 73 Peace of Westphalia, con- cluded in 1648, 13; state of Germany at time of, 15-16; intellectual decline at time of, 16; losses of German territory at time of, 17 Persia, divided between Russia and Great Britain, 192-3 Polish question in Prussia, 222-34 Pomerania, part of acquired by Brandenburg, 24 Pope, quarrels with emperor, 9 Pragmatic Sanction, regula- tion of Austrian succession by, 49 Protection (economic system) adopted by Germany in 1879, 169-70 Index 259 Prussia, duchy of on Baltic, 23 ; passes into hands of elector of Brandenburg, 23 ; history of, 223-5 Prussia, kingdom of created in 1700, 36; patriarchal sys- tem of, 38-40, 56; an agri- cultural state, 57-58; and the French Revolution, 70- 72; revival of after Jena, 74-81 ; makes war on Napo- leon, 83; at Congress of Vienna, 89-91 ; renewed rivalry with Austria, 103 ; continued reforms after 1815, 108-11; revolution of 1848 in, 115; puts Austria out of Germany, 143; its Polish problem, 222-34 Reichstag, 145; suffrage pro- visions for, 216-7 Reformation, in Germany, IO Roman Empire, persistence of idea of, 6 Russia, allied with France, 190; draws close to Great Britain, 192; preparedness of for war of 1914, 198 (note) Scharnhorst, reorganizes the Prussian army, 79-80, 92 Schleswig and Holstein, issue of stated, 136-7 Serbia, its part in war of 1914, 199, 200 Serfs, in Prussia, 58; libera- tion of, 77-78 Seven Years' War, 52-54 Silesia, invaded by Frederick n, 48-49 Socialism, 173-4 Spanish Incident of 1870, 147-8 Stael, Madame de, on Ger- many, 113 Stein, reorganizes Prussia, 76- 79; put under the ban by Napoleon, 79 Three Class system of fran- chise, described, 120-21, 216-18 Thirty Years' War, 12; con- cluded by Peace of West- phalia, 13; political conse- quences of, 13; economic and moral consequences of, 15-17 Triple Alliance, formation of, 177; 190 Triple Entente, formation of, 193 Voltaire, and Frederick the Great, 43 Voyages of Discovery, effect of on Europe, 19-20 War of 1914, origin of, 193- 99 Waterloo, battle of, 88 Wellington, at Waterloo, 88 William i, his character, 128; proposes army reform, 129; proclaimed German em- peror, 152; death, 178 William 11, dismisses Bismarck from office, 178; character of, 179-80; foreign policy under, 190-1 Zollverein, described, iio-n; 169 L 005 827 637 9 001 205 667 7